In terms of plotting Pact Slots vs Spell Points (the Spell Slot variant), it matches very closely until level 9, where the Spell Point variant takes a fair lead - then it comes back into line at level 11. The third Pact Slot really should be at level 9, which is why you have the problem mentioned at 9:52.
Also compare this with font of magic conversion and after 1 rest the warlock is equal or better than full casters at all levels except 8,9,10. The invocation updates + magical cunning really puts in work.
Damn, I just guessed that 9th level would probably be a better spot for the 3rd spellslot strictly based on vibes. I can't believe the spell point math works out that way as well
Your suggestion creates a problem though. In my campaigns, we usually get about two fights in a day. There would be a huge difference as the warlock could cast 5th Level spells six times, where everyone else gets to cast them once or maybe twice. True, they have other spell slots, so it might not technically be more powerful, but it feels unfair for other casters.
The main reason I can see for the Alter Self excitement is finally having a quick disguise that holds up to physical inspection, as disguise self doesn’t do that.
I might be wrong but I think the main benefit is that it also works on creatures with truesight. This means that a character build for deception can now fool anyone.
Both good points, I think if they drop the concentration requirement it will really be a great, unique addition. Although MoMF would be completely obsolete if they did...
I feel like the Celestial gets a huge bump by having the spells always prepared. Lesser Restoration, Greater Restoration and Revivify are spells you hardly ever use, but are really valuable when you need them. Not having to waste limited learned spell slots on them whilst still having them available when needed is great.
Having them always prepared is nice because you can use scrolls for them too now. On some tables that means you never have to spend a spell slot on them.
@@benjaminkowal7310 That's still an option even without the changes. Spell scrolls don't need to be a prepared/known spell, it just needs to be on your class's spell list. And Revivify & the Restorations are considered Warlock spells for all Celestial Warlocks, regardless of whether they choose to have them known.
Another thing is the amount of increase to the overall health pool of the party with temp hit points. While it comes on late, with a table like mine that has 5-6 players, twilight cleric is banned, and inspirational leader is nerfed, I get sometimes 150 plus hp added. The buff to healing spells now also helps it out. The 6th level feature is lackluster, but not outright terrible. Just wish it wasn’t radiant damage.
While I’m not satisfied with PT7 Warlock in terms of balance, I’m very excited to see Warlock get the support it needs to keep its unique design without being so Short Rest hungry. I am optimistic with the addition of Ritual spells and modifications of “at will” invocations.
Honestly bladelock looking very similar to 2014 except with an extra extra attack at 11, and (vitally) you don’t need to go Hexblade. As everyone has noted, the second extra attack at 11 is a problem, but if we cut that, balance is fine, and I _really_ like the pattern of gentle rebalance of wizards, while stepping everyone else up to more directly compete with them. Chris mentioned it, Eldritch Adept: Pact of the Blade might be too good not to take on many martials, even ones which usually dump Cha. It’s now a feat tax for Paladins, and while I prefer access to a feat over a multiclass dip which screws Dex Pallies, feat taxes in general aren’t good for the game
@@mjp121 From a balance perspective, I 100% agree. From an in game, actual player perspective, though, it doesn't make much of a difference. There's no such thing as an "insert thing" tax in the general community. %99.99 percent of players are playing a class because it's features look cool, not because it's 100+% over baseline dpr. For example, Monk is an objectively bad class, but more people play Monk than Cleric despite Cleric being an S tier class. Why? Because people want to play Goku, Jackie Chan, and Tony Ja, not Mercy. Likewise, hexblade was way out of line and the new Pact of the Blade is way out of line... but who really cares? How many games are being totally ruined by an OP subclass that you just can't handle? How many players are bringing broken characters to the group campaign? I've been playing for years and no race or class combo has ever destroyed the game. The worst games I've been in have all been because of someone's attitude, not their build.
@@Bladezeromusbalance doesn’t matter until it does- so long as everyone is within a certain range indeed who cares, but, for instance, the current Moon Druid imbalances the game in a way which makes it unfun at very low levels. Balance DOES matter, and having a supposed spellcasting class absolutely trounce martials in martial combat is a problem- and at 11, playtest 7 Warlock trounces martial characters in martial combat, no spells necessary. That said I think you are missing my point by exaggerating the power of these features while at the same time claiming it doesn’t exist... Hexblade is an optimal choice in many builds, and if you never table with people who make basic optimal choices… well you are either a liar or massive statistical outlier. The thing is, that level of optimization isn’t problematic- it has an opportunity cost, and doesn’t upend the proverbial apple cart- games where the paladin has a level of hexblade play very similar to those where they don’t. That said, build taxes are very real- 90% of gish builds take War Caster, 99% of casters build in concentration protection by 12, and many, many martial characters take Great Weapon Maater, Polearm Master, or Sharpshooter- they’re so much stronger than other options that it feels like intentional sabotage not to at least consider them. The problem isn’t that the existence of these feats break the game, the problem is that by having certain features so obviously better than others that those others get less attention. Speaking of, I’d like a citation that more players play monk (or that clerics are S tier.
@@mjp121 I neither think I'm a liar or an outlier nor do I believe I've missed your point. I believe you're simply adamant on talking over me on this subject. The point I'm making is that, on paper, this stuff matters. In practical play, it almost never does. I never claim to have not played with min-maxers. As you can see, we are both Treeantmonk enjoyers which means we probably also watch other channels like Pack Tactics. There are 2 power gamers at my table including myself and it simply doesn't matter. Your numbers are skewered by a bit of terminally online syndrome. Those build tax assumptions are only accurate regarding the builds of min-maxers and not applicable to normal play. In reality, most players look at those feats and dont even think they're very good. They dont take GWM or Sharpshooter because they're scared to miss and they dont build in concentration protection because the DM never really targets them. Moon Druid? The heck is a moon druid? Most people playing druid just want to do the thing where they spy as a bug on the wall then talk to some wolves. Being OP early game is basically a nonfactor because no one will notice or care. What you call a "basic optimal choices" simply "doesn't fit their character." The only people who feel like they are intentionally sabotaging themselves are number crunchers because there really isn't much content in DnD5e that an average party can't prevail against. At 10th level and beyond the powerscaling is so cracked that no one really cares. If you're a full caster you're a demi-god (the real issue). All I see here is the same mentality that killed off a bunch of wanna be Esports games. But DnD has no competitive scene, no viewing audience. There's no reason to balance the game for the 1% of people who sit down at character creation and say "I want to make a melee character, so I guess I'll make another battlemaster half orc, sentinel polearm fighter."
Since Bladelock came out I haven’t been at or seen a table that didn’t have at least one. The issue is they are too easy to build to be good and overshadow other characters in effectiveness in combat constantly. I rarely see monks from experienced players especially as levels go up as they run out of steam. This can be helped by working with DM to help them out in terms of specific items and bonuses.
I think the warlock’s spell slot issue would be entirely fixed if they brought back third to fifth level mystic arcanum as invocations from the other playtest. Keep sixth to ninth level mystic arcanum as a base class feature, but if you want more lower level spells, then you can spend invocations to get them. This would probably be a pact of the tome exclusive feature because that’s the option that focuses on spellcasting, but I’d be fine with that. You get a lot more invocations anyway, so it wouldn’t even be that big an issue.
The version of War Caster printed in the Expert Classes Playtest provides advantage on all Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration, not just those made as a result of taking damage.
Will say this with Celestial being there, it does fill a unique niche with it's healing plus RP-wise, it is a "good" warlock option to complement the evil devil and amoral fay (with GOO just fulfilling the occultist/Lovecraftian vibe).
I've played 1Barbarian / XCelestial Warlock as a sort of bad guy making a deal with a good guy in an act of desperation and it was fun as heck. I wish the 14th level feature was better tho, like let use it on allies too or something idk. It rarely comes up and isn't cool enough for once a long rest...
True. But it does need a little bump, maybe being able to substitute in Radiant damage for other damage types, and have the level 6 damage bump apply to all targets, but only once per spell.
@@killcat1971 Honestly rather it just turn into a new feature perhaps something more support enhancing. Like gives you the ability to reroll healing dice, and radiant damage dealing dice or add a 1d4 to any of those rolls. Agonizing blast seems to replace most of its use tbh. Especially if you could get it to synergize with healing light. Level 10 feature just needs a redesign temp hit points to heal spells and healing light perhaps. 14th feature should have another feature giving them some kind of celestial patron action, like calling on immobile concentrated beam from the positive realms heals or burns your enemies with radiant damage. Failing that some kind of sanctuary like ability around the warlock that lasts for as long as the warlock channels it.
@@tenaciousgamer6892 That's an interesting concept, tying other effects to the healing light die, making a very distinct difference from the base class.
I wish they kept more Chain-specific invocations, considering that Chain can be picked alongside other pacts. I especially want Gift of the Ever-Living Ones.
There has been a flood of BG3 videos across all D&D related channels lately. But not Chris. He has decided not to reap the low hanging fruit. That is a man of principles.
The worst part about playing Warlocks is those weird power boosts at 11 and 17 in my opinion. The 3rd pact slot should be available from level 7 or 9 and the 4th from 13 or 15. Also, to balance Bladelock I'd take away the 3rd attack of Thirsting Blade but up the die of Lifedrinker to 1D10 (only heal half rounded up).
Honestly, I see tons of celestial warlocks, way more than fiends. Players love being a good themed warlock and the bonus action healing is really useful.
I made a Christmas-themed celestial warlock, it's my favorite character I've played I worked with the DM for some custom magic items, but it started with the Naughty/Nice list being the pact of the tome book
It pairs *phenomenally* with the criminal background. I love Celestial Warlocks and they'll always be dear to my heart. 6th level feature sucks ass though.
@@ItMeJishI also came here to also say I see tons of people recommend or say they liked playing the Celestial. However, I think among optimizers, it is way less common, so that’s probably why Treantmonk doesn’t see it nearly as often at his tables.
Yeah, I've played two, different backgrounds and patron concepts, but both were a blast and I just like the idea of being able to heal people by simply smiling at them.
I would love to see Celestial replace the 6th level feature with something defensive. Maybe like "When you cast a Warlock spell that requires your concentration, you can grant a creature within 30 feet of you +2 to their Armor Class as long as you concentrate on the spell." Also the damage on their 14th feature needs dialling up a TON of it's once per long rest.
The current level 6 feature is the only way for a blade warlock to keep up damage wise without thirsting blade (if they take agonizing blast for green flame blade and cast spirit shroud)
I mean, damage resistance to Radiant is defensive. Granted it's one of the least common damage types for PCs to take, but still. Something like you proposed would be cool, though.
One thing you didn't mention about the Archfey's (new) lvl 6 feature is that those additional effects on Misty Step like the invisibility can be added on any Misty Step cast, not just as a reaction. And with the reaction you also still have access to your 3rd level Misty Step enhancements. P.S. The one invocation I am actually missing here is Voice of the Chain Master. It might not be that powerful, but it was very flavourful.
There's definitely some missing invocations and I hope they return. Far scribe is one of my favorite invocations, thematically it was really cool. I hope we can see it return in later playtests
Personally, voice either needed to be, boosted a little, rolled into either base Pact of the Chain, rolled into another invocation, or at the very least, reworded to be a bit more clear. After so many re-reads of it, its still a little confusing whether or not you still need a bonus attack to see using the familiars' senses. Mostly though, I'm hoping the ones that aren't in the play test are just ones that WotC hasn't made any changes to or think really change out the playtest goes so they'll still appear in the book, just word for word what they were before. Or not, still the old versions are still compatible.
I definitely agree that Eldritch Blast should probably still scale based on Warlock level. Also, Pact of the Blade and Pact of the Tome, should have some type of prerequisite so that they can't be taken through the Eldritch Adept feat. (Maybe just requiring +1 level in Warlock)
I disagree about Pact of the Blade and Pact of the tome needing a prerequisite. The ability to take them through Eldritch Adept is a good and flavorful thing for quite a few classes. Given the upgrades to either of them are still very much locked behind Warlock levels, it doesn't intrude more on class identity than say... martial adept and metamagic adept does for Battle masters and sorcerers. I'd actually want pact of the chain to drop to the same lack for much the same reason. So many cool builds are opened up now, that don't have to take a level (or three) of warlock just for one feature and a bunch they'll barely ever use. Also Eldritch Adept was kind of... barren for non-locks to take. Like whats in there for non-locks are... basically stuff every other class has better options for... even a few racial options are competitive with a few of them. Now, it might be good for the game if the Eldritch Adept feat. (and Martial and metamagic adept for that matter) itself is given a character level +4 prerequisite, so 'locks get to be the earliest ones to play around with the feat and for enough time that that they are always the best at it.
Loved the changes to invocations in this playtest. They buffed (or removed) all the underutilized invocations in useful ways. At will arcane eye at 9th level is especially exciting. Interesting to see that the pacts don't have any prerequisite so they can be taken by Eldritch Initiate, which seems very good (Pact of the Blade for Paladins and Swords bards, Pact of the Tome for any non-caster looking for utility, a spell slot, and eldritch blast, and Pact of the Chain for anyone who wants a nicer familiar). However, it begs the question: who did these characters make a pact with? When you're a Warlock it's obvious, your patron. For other characters, it seems unclear. Also, I think the reason they included Celestial was for thematics, to balance with Fiend. They did the same thing with the Druid circles. I definitely would like to see them spice up the Celestial if they want to put it in the 2024 PHB. Fully agree on Blade pacts being overpowered. Thirsting blade is definitely eating the Fighter's lunch and should not get that third attack.
The feat says you make a minor Pact with some powerful entity. A Paladin who accidentally made a deal with a Fiend, or a Bard that Black Beauty'd a Unicorn make lots of sense and have a lot of narrative fun!
Jeremy Crawford talked about this in one of the playtest videos. He said that the Warlock can get power from many sources. It can be some random powerful monster you made a deal with. It can be some ancient spell you found. It can be some divine source of power that anyone can tap into if you know how to. However you want to flavor it. I think it makes multi-classing into a Warlock easier narratively because you don’t have to think of a patron if you’re only 1-2 levels in.
I hadn't even considered that gaze of two minds can work on familiars. Now a warlock can cast spells from basically a tiny flying invisible turret from 60ft away, and it doesn't even break invisibility because the warlock is the one casting, and if the familiar dies they can replace it with an action to keep sniping people from safety. Gaze of two minds needs to either limit the creature type to exclude familiars or remove the ability to cast spells from their place, because right now it's busted.
How many spells you going to cast in total 2 or 3? How strong is the familar 1 to 8hps? Return fire at the it will take it out early in the battle. you gain 60feet range usefull. You gain the ability to scout and abush. Artifisures get a mobile cannon use every round and stiill cast them selves. Rouges add 1 to 10d6 on an ambush you just get your spell off. Not OP compaired to others.
@@BeachandHills-hb2pq an imp can fly and turn invisible, and this invocation allows you to hide somewhere and keep summoning them, at which point they will turn invisible again and never reveal your hiding place. You can stay safe and sound through walls and never see any danger while you keep remotely firing spells at enemies. The artificer turret is visible and does not share your senses, it's made to help the artificer while they are engaging, but an artificer cannot remotely control it like a familiar because they don't see through it's senses, and the turret alone is incredibly weak, it wouldn't do anything by itself while the warlock can use their full power from the imp's position. You also seem to not have noticed the warlock can cast find familiar with an action without expending a spell slot. So unlike the artificer, the warlock can keep creating the familiar all day. So no, the artificer turret isn't even remotely comparable to this new warlock's familiar with gaze of two minds. The warlock is actually broken here. edit: typo
In regards to Master of Myriad Forms, it is entirely because of the "The changes wrought by this spell fail to hold up to physical inspection" paragraph in disguise self that I consider it the superior option. I play games with a lot of social interaction and in those Disguise Self would almost certainly get noticed, which renders it significantly worse than Alter Self which prevents your disguise from so easily breaking. The natural weapons and underwater stuff is just a nice bonus. Now if you are only trying to pass quick visual inspection, Disguise Self is probably better, however I find that comes up a lot less.
I would like to see Book of Ancient Secrets added as an Invocation for Pact of the Tome - "On your adventures, you can add other ritual spells to your Book of Shadows. When you find such a spell, you can add it to the book if the spell's level is equal to or less than half your warlock level (rounded up) and if you can spare the time to transcribe the spell." Also, the Far Scribe invocation should come back. I tinkered a bit with multiclassing 3 levels of Bard, College of Valor (UA6) - med armor+shield and extra spell slots. The Warlock rest of the way. Not a Hexbard build but still pretty close.
I agree. I don't really care about the other boosts to Pact of the Tome. I mean they are good, but book of ancient secrets gave a versatility to the Pact which was unique and not OP by any means. Now they can cast rituals, but without BoAS they will be limited to rituals of the warlock list, since the common spell lists were abandoned.
1000% percent agree and I don't know why more people don't realize the potential and have yet to see an explanation for why the adding other rituals was taken out. Old school tomelock with BoAS could rack up (for a bit of gold) a truckload of utility spells. I cast Waterbreathing on my party every morning, went everywhere on a Phantom Steed, used Unseen Servant all the time and Commune was much better than the risky Contact Other Plane. Commune with Nature was also a very nice ritual (if you have a cooperative DM).
4:40 - the reason they remove changing ivocations is because some invocations have pacts as prereqs. If you have pact of the blade and eldritch smite, then at level switch pact of the blade for something else, then eldritch smite is no longer valid because you don't have the prereq anymore, so you'd have to be allowed to swap both invocation, which wotc probably feels is too complicated mechanically, so instead remove changing altogether.
One thing that you didn't consider regarding Lessons of the First Ones, is that there are plenty of Level 4 Feats that don't have Prerequisites either. Although in the actual book, level 4 might become a listed Prerequisite. Currently, the Warlock can also take Resilient or Weapon Training too, which are significant because they also increase your Attribues. Even more significantly, ASIs have become Feats without Prerequisites so in the current state of the game, the Warlock can use Lessons of the First Ones to pick up an ASI.
I caught that level four was separate from the list of prerequisites but I didn't even think about ASI. They are definitely going to have to at least exclude that one if the intention was to also allow the option to take basic 4th level feats.
@@XanderHarris1023 It turns out that they already did. UA7 has a small Feats section that contains nothing but ASI and it was changed to have the Prerequisite of being level 4.
In my last feedback about the Warlock I presented a idea that was something like Magical Cunning, but my idea was for replacing Pact Slots coming back on short-rests. I named them Gifts (or Patron's Gifts something like that) and this specificaly was Gift of Restorance, it had a duration of 10 minutes (like most ritual spells) and you needed to maintain concentration throughout the duration, as you entered a state of trance. At the end of this ritual, the Warlock would get all his Pact Slots back, and it could be done 2 times per long-rest initially, and at later levels scaling to 3 times.
For invocations, I noticed the omission of a couple I liked, namely Cloak of Flies and Tomb of Levistus. Cloak of Flies probably unpopular, but I liked the flavor of it.
Those are all XGtE invocations. The intent isn't to port over all of those, but certainly give WotC feedback to request those if there is concern about backwards compatibility.
I never considered playing one dnd until now..... this makes me unreasonably happy and excited. I've always loved warlocks narratively, and now they are mechanically appealing, if not perfectly balanced, aswell!
I think a solid way of fixing warlocks access to spellcasting would be to allow one casting from each level of patron spells without a spell slot per long rest. that also helps a bit with the spells that lack an upcast benefit, because they aren't being upcast when you use them this way. Not sure how to concisely and clearly word a feature like that, especially with level 1 and 2 patron spells being merged together and gained at level 3, but the net effect would be 5 additional spell casts per day by level 9 but with limitations on what spells can be cast that way and at what level. Then you could remove magical cunning, which helps out the capstone feature because at present as you already get half its benefit at a much earlier level, you're only really gaining half of its benefit as a capstone, and its already not a great capstone. It also means that a decent amount of your spellcasting is directly tied to your patron in some way as it can only be used on your patron spells, which is fine thematically because your patron is the source of your magic
I believe the reason the designers are pushing for the recovery features to only recover things if you've expended all uses is to incentivize players to actually USE their features to the fullest. Too often I see players hoarding class resources TBH, being too stingy with ki or spell slots or sorcery points. That's my two cents on that design decision at least!
Something that's missing from Tome Pact since Book of Ancient Shadows is missing now is that they can't learn any ritual like a wizard learns a spell. Something which in my opinion isn't really a dangerous feature and I hope they bring back because it's very thematic in my opinion in regards to what tome warlock represents. Yes it makes them the best Ritual Caster admittedly but they used to trade an invocation for that plus the ability to ritual cast, that's not really the end of the world since they can't/couldn't cast these spells except as rituals and the ritual spell list is heavily curated. I currently play an Archfey warlock for character reasons the new features are amazing by comparison to the old ones.
For the celestials searing vengeance ability giving the blinded condition, any attack to a blinded enemy is at advantage or, sense they're blind, you can retreat without taking an opportunity attack. So they may have thought that it would be a unique way of letting you choose to stay and fight or run away.
Eldritch Spear is perfect for Spelljammer or any campaign where you have vehicle combat. That also means that at T4 you can out range even a longbow with EB.
I hope to see a return of the Patron spells system they had for UA5 Warlock, which gave you free castings of your Patron Spells. It doesn't fully solve the spell slot problem, but it could be a thematic and flavourful way to mitigate it.
I like how it forces creative usage of those patron spells too. My DM has given my genie warlock a few free uses of Gust of Wind every day and it's been really flavorful while also letting me engage with an underused spell.
If the Warlock got one each of 1st, 2nd, -3rd- slots it would open up so many options for many of the small spells that you just can't afford to cast as a Warlock but would make quality of play so much more satisfying, by being useful in so many small moments.
Pact Boons definitely need a requirement like “at least 1 level in warlock” to prevent every martial from taking Eldritch Adept to take Pact of the Blade. Scaling stuff like Eldritch Blast off of your warlock level instead of character level is pretty important as well (though part of me would want that to extend to all cantrip scaling to align with extra attack)
I prefer a feat tax on Paladins/Valor Bards over a multiclass Hexblade tax- feels much less restrictive and actually less cheesy imo. Honestly Pact of the Tome may be more problematic- it’s a strong spellcasting feat option.
@@mjp121This. It isn't even necessarily cheesy, more like a QoL change like they made to Fiendish Vigor - people were already doing them (getting the Hexblade bonuses on Charisma martial classes through a 1-2 level dip), this just streamlines it at the cost of a background/Human bonus feat to go into Eldritch Adept. If anything it feels more elegant a solution and allows for a straight 1-20 progression in a single class rather than trying to optimize a multiclass if that's the identity you want. But agree, Pact of the Tome is definitely more problematic. It butts heads with Magic Initiate way too much.
I love the new Warlock. It is so much fun. Making it balanced feels like a relatively small amount of work as well. Make Weapon Pact scale with Warlock Level, remove bonus damage from Lifedrinker, and then reevaluate and do another smaller nerf if needed, and keep on reevaluating.
I think it's art to really lean into the invocations since those are really what make warlocks so fun to build. Warlocks sit in a weird spot where they're not sturdy enough to be melee fighters but they're also too spell-starved to hang with wizards and sorcerers. The invocations are good, solid tools with a lot of uses you can give them, and especially outside combat some.invocations and the high CHA really set them up to shine.
I played my UA7 Lvl 12 PotB Archfey Warlock last night. I have never played a Warlock before but am loving the flavor of this class! The first fight began with a mob and two Stone Giants at a distance and so cast Banishment on those two and it landed. Now I have to concentrate and so I kept my distance and EB'd the others. When I brought the Giants back we melees were in flanking position. Their very first swing at me hit me for notable damage (and why I am averse to relying on concentration spells for melee damage a-la Spirit Shroud) but I used Hellish Rebuke which finished him off so no further attack on me and my 2nd Pact Slot is gone. With the 2nd Stone Giant I got a crit and so used my third and last spell slot for Eldritch Smite and gave about 70 dmg if memory serves. So in one fight and in four or five rounds I am out my Pact Spell Slots. I did cast Magical Cunning afterward and got two back and I like how this urges you to not save your spells so much since they have to be expended. I really think you have to sit down and play these classes to really know how they work rather than just look at the Class Sheet and think you'll know how it plays out. I also think the Warlock is at its prime about 11-12th level. I love he flavor of this class: when you do something big, you go big!...since you cast most everything at 5th level.
Great video! I agree 100% with your concern about Eldritch Blast. It has always acted like extra attack (after adding Agonizing Blast) but scales purely based on character level rather than class level. It was reigned in some by not having any damage boosting feats, but it made sense to me when you chose it as the baseline because of how easy that damage is to achieve. And this version makes it even easier to achieve since you only need a 1 level dip. That even gives you access to the level 19 ability increase (with the increased cap of 22) if you want it. I really hope they address this somehow.
I currently play a tweaked version of your Voice from Beyound GOOlock in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus and I love playing him. As soon I heard the changes of Awakened Mind, my heart broke. Yes two-way-telepathy is a buff, yes the new distanz is a buff and yes the breakable line of sight is a buff as well. But there are also great nerfs... the limitation in Action economy, the limitation on how many creature the GOO can use it at the same, the limition on shared languages and worst of all the limitation in uses. Yes most of the limitations are needed to allow the new level 6 to exist without being absurdly overpowered and yes as soon as you make it to level, 6 I could be convinced that it's for the better of the Subclass. Personally, I will miss the old Awakened Mind anyways. I have many reasons to think so. First of all, you are less likely to share your new observations with your party without sharing them with someone else (enemies, guards or maybe a friendly NPC you don't want to scare). Further more are you less inclined to tryout new strategies in the heat of battle which need your opponents to be uninformed in order to work propperly. And to don't create a too large Wall of Text, it is so much fun to "freak someone out" when you don't have to fear major consequences. Or more than one if you really like to. In my eyes every other change off this new GOO is at least ok. I guess my only hope for the GOO is that they somehow manage to bring back the old flavor of Awakened Mind without braking the subclass. 🙁
Instead of Magical Cunning, they should just have Mystic Arcana for every spell level, not just 6 and up. I also like the skeleton familiar because it allows for a Pseudo Animate Dead for the Warlock.
They experimented with *literally doing that*, and the feedback was abysmal when people realised they would have to give up invocations to get those extra mystic arcanums, I mean they aren't exactly free, and because of that, there was no point to take any other invocations because spells are always the best class features, so yeah, people hated it. All they can do with this one, is a 1 minute ritual for an extra high level spell, and an extra 1st level spell for tomelocks You cannot give warlocks as many spell slots as wizards because warlocks get everything back on a short rest, and there are no limits to the number of short rests in a day so a 10th level warlock, gets up to 16 5th level spells in a day, of theoretical power (if warlocks had animate dead on their spell list they would be unbelievably broken beyond the hell their patron is from) When Pack tactics looked over the 5th UA, I don't remember if he said 2 or 3 short rests, but if 2, that means at his table 10th level warlocks get 7 5th level spells over a day, while wizards get say, 3 including arcane recovery if that is the case, how much is 3 4th level, 3 2nd levels, and 3 1st level slots even worth? especially when warlocks do *not* have defensive spells like shield or absorb elements, and utility spells like misty step are now freely included in say, the archfey warlock, and 1st level damaging spells are no better than eldritch blast anyway ok, so, is a 5th level slot worth both a 4th level, and a 3rd level slot combined? that is the question here, well we can have a look at metamagic point costs for spells to see if there is some equality elsewhere: if a sorcerer spends their 3rd level slot, and their 4th level slot, it turns out yes, they can exactly afford one 5th level slot with the 7 sorcery points this means that at least from a balance standpoint, one 5th level slot is worth roughly a 3rd and a 4th level slot combined, and what with the whole invocations thing, agonising blast, new pact of the tome, etc, that pretty much covers for 1st and second level slots at 10th level, you have 7 invocations at 10th level, a wizard has 7 1st and second level spells also, we already know that, from alter self from the 5th level invocation, is worth the same as a second level spell, being that it allows you to actually cast a second level spell, another one is one with shadows, which allows you to cast invisibility, which is a 2nd level spell, almost as if you had 2nd level spell slots to cast it with now, look at the warlock spell list, other than misty step, invisibility, are there any other second level spells you would even want to cast at all? genuinely, the warlock spell list isn't something that more 1st and 2nd level slots would help with, because it doesn't really contain any good 1st or 2nd level spells, and in terms of power level, it's fairly reasonable to establish that a 2nd level spell (which you have at will in invocations), and a 5th level spell, is fairly equivalent to using a 4th level spell one turn, and a 3rd level spell the next, at least it was designed to work that way If all of that is indeed the case, then I think the devs actually did a fantastic job of giving the warlock more spells to play with, (making better invocations, so that you are still doing spell-like things besides eldritch blast in combat) which still fall within the parameters of the original design, without redesigning the warlock as a halfcaster, which regarding internal playtests, was apparently the only other remotely balanced solution they had besides making them a full caster with almost no invocations, no pact boons, etc etc if anything, I think it would be great if there were more options at 5th level for invocations, which allowed for unlimited use of a 2nd level utility spell, like they did with alter self and invisibility and levitate and eldritch blast scaling to 2 beams, and I am all for keeping those as is because they are great, I think maybe spider climb would actually be a great option, and I would take it if that were an option at 5th level
Thematically Warlock is one of the best classes. I am really hoping they could give them an extra spell slot around level 7. Honestly few tables actually short rest more than twice per day so it shouldn't break the game while keeping the warlock going for more!
Issue I think with pact boons as invocations are that they could represent stronger packs of features when they weren't invocations and also different core playstyles for the warlock. But I can see the advantages to them being invocations so not hugely worried about the change.
I see Celestial talked about a lot on Reddit forums. However, I think the difference is that it’s non-optimizers who play it. This may explain why you find it to be rare at your tables full of optimizers.
Compared to a Genie that can just wish for Aura of Vitality, reincarnation, or mass cure wounds...it isn't even close to being the optimal subclass for healing as a Warlock. It is the first character I played past level 7 and it has been fun. Not having access to Wish though kind of makes all other Warlocks look like trash from an optimization perspective imho.
I think the best solution to the warlock dip isn't to make eldritch blast scale with warlock level but to have agonizing blast scale with warlock level. "You can apply your charisma modifier to the damage rolls of your cantrip once per turn. At the following warlock levels it improves. At 5th level it becomes 2 times per turn, at 11th level 3 times per turn, at level 17 4 times per turn"
They should do something like they did with Dark Ones Blessing, for Long Death monks too. Then you don't need to pull the bag o rats trick to make it viable 🤔 I do admit, that I like the change of the different pacts being considered invocations, as well as the increase of the number of invocations themselves for more build versatility. 🤙 I don't like the change of hurl thru hell, but I really like the improvements to the archfey, and goolicks.
I think hurl though hell is still really good. While it provides a save it’s still a spell that you can just add on top of an attack with no extra action, instead of something that feels like a wasted turn if the enemy saves. One change they should make though is if an enemy saves you can fry it again after a short rest.
Pact of the Tome: 1. At the end of a short/long rest, you create this book. THE BOOK grants you these effects (Cantrips, Rituals, Spell Slot, Spellcasting Focus). 2. The book disappears if you conjure another book with this feature, or if you die. Because the book is what's granting the extra spell slot, taking another rest to conjure another book will delete the old book, and thus delete the extra spell slot. So no, the wording doesn't let you get infinite slots by repeatedly resting.
The Great Old One Subclass seems to work "backwards": | . Lvl 11: Pact of The Blade + (other related invocations), you attack physically 1 target & it is great. | . Lvl 10: Eldritch Hex (targeting Wisdom), so the enemy has a higher chance to fail the next feature: | . Lvl 6: Clairvoyant Combatant (you better make it work with the 1 free use, or multiclass 3 to 5 levels in other fullcaster classes for repeated attempts). | Now you have advantage against 1 target (that has disadvantage against you), making 3 attacks to it per action. -> Use 1 invocation for Medium Armor & Shields, another for Armor of Agathys. By using Booming Blade, one if your attacks bypasses normal resistencies (enemies resisting psy damage usually also deal psy damage, getting 1/4 of it in retaliation).
In the game I'm running right now, a lot of travel is taking place per day. I made it so that between fights are Short Rests, to great acclaim. Fighter gets to Surge every Fight, Cleric gets to Channel Divinity every fight (Light so nova damage is HUGE), and the Warlock gets about 6-8 slots a day. Mixed with free cast Invocations, the Warlock is already casting way, WAY more leveled spells than the rest of the party, the casters of which get 9 total slots. This is all fine as is because I talked to the table and we can all respect the approximate power level of each party member to not power game too hard (but it's of course fine in doses.) If our Warlock, who is a Hexblade by chance of backstory, got the changes listed here, he'd instantaneously outpace the rest of the party in number of casts, strength of casts, physical damage, and even AC. There would not be a single aspect of the game he would be lacking in. As such, he has outright said he doesn't want to touch this playtest at all, because it would effectively overcharge him for little to no cost, and even refund him Invocations and a Subclass to do so. TLDR: The number of slots and casts was never the problem, it's that WotC assumes there's a universal Short Rest standard, when there's not. Have a Warlock when the table rests once a day, they'll be lacking. Rest 3 times or more a day with free spell Invocations? Literal non-stop casts. Short Rests are the issue, just make them like 10 minutes max twice a day or something so that the disparity isn't so massive some tables are begging for buffs while others have to actively nerf themselves to not be gods.
I know I’m an outlier but I always liked the Celestial Warlock. I played it in our Desent into Avernus campaign and had a blast. I took the pact of the tomb and agonizing blast with my winged Tiefling and I always felt like I could contribute no matter what was going on. The party especially liked the free temporary hit points every rest. Very underrated in my opinion.
One note on Contact Other Plane: while the drawbacks of failing the throw are significant, they all last only until a long rest anyway, so you can cast the spell every day before your long rest, assuming you have enough HP to survive the psychic damage. Automatic save against that isn't all that big of a deal. On a side note, I love that spell. Once got an entity into a different plane using Banishing Smite before using Contact Other Plane to ask it for what it knew. Not exactly the most RAW use of the spell, but man it was funny.
Pact of the Blade is very obviously favored in this playtest, which is awesome and i can't wait to try it, but what bothers me is the lack of invocations for the other pacts. Blade got 3 whole invocations, tome and chain only got 1. There are lots of other invocations we didnt see, and I worry with the lack of transparency that we might not see them return at all. You cant even argue that we arent seeing these invocations because they were from xanathars and tasha's, because the ones we see in the playtest are from those books as well! Understandably, Book of Ancient Secrets was merged with tome, so it makes sense why its gone. But we're also missing Aspect of the Moon and Far Scribe! They may not be the most powerful but they're very fun flavor options and I personally love playing with them. For Chain pact though, we are missing Voice of the Chain Master (okay), Chains of Carceri (underwhelming), and Gift of the Ever-Living Ones (which is definitely the most powerful of the bunch). These invocations always felt a bit lackluster and it makes me sad to see that instead of changing any of them wizards opted to remove them entirely. And even from what we do have, Investment of the Chain master feels very lackluster. (Im going off the assumption that we are playing with the 5e version of find familiar, because thats what both invocations imply): -The fly and swim speed is redundant because you can choose a familiar with those speeds anyways -Who cares about attacking with your bonus action and changing the damage type, if the attack bonus doesn't scale with your level and instead uses the creature's lackluster bonus to attack? -Using your own DC is okay if you use the poison attacks, but good luck hitting because, again, their attack bonus doesn't increase at all -The damage resistance is okay, but at higher levels this is completely useless because your familiar will have so few hitpoints in the first place Pact of the Chain definitely needs the most work here. We need to see these other invocations return, or for brand new ones to be introduced in their place. Chain pact feels kinda uninteresting and the invocations never really changed much. I'm also confused as to why pact of the chain is a 2nd level invocation? why do we not have access to it at 1st level when the other invocations are there, is there any specific reason for that?
This is the first time I’ve been excited to play a straight classed Warlock since the launch of 5e. Yes, Pact of the Blade needs its damage output reduced. Yes, Chain needs some clarification. But I believe they have narrowed this down to the right track. Now do it for Ranger!!!
Pact of the blade needs its damage output to stay where it is, otherwise you’re gonna have the same problem as 5e where every warlocks most optimal damage is always just EB + agonizing blast + hex, regardless of if they mean to be melee or ranged
Ok, so I have been playing one of Indestructoboy's classes, the zodiac, in one of our campaigns. It has the same spell slot progression as the warlock (it even has a version of the quickened spell slot restoration feature the playtest added). But it feels like I am casting so much more. The reason is simple: The zodiac gets rituals. They can even cast all divination spells on their spell list as rituals. Now that every class gets to cast rituals, all they need to do is give the warlock a few more spells known and class exclusive rituals. That fixes the problem of not getting to feel like a full spellcaster.
For me the archfey warlock was the one I played for flavor, and I'm delighted to see it become a really interesting mechanical option. I had a knee jerk reaction to the pacts as invocations portion of this playtest, but have come around to appreciating it if they can iron out the balance issues. In particular I think pact of the blade is threading a needle. It needs to be better than Eldritch blast, with simple options while not being OP when you layer on all the options. I wonder how much it would help if you removed the option for heavy weapons.
You didn't mention it in the vod, but you also gain advantage against that creature for the duration of the bond. In essence Clairvoyant Combatant is a better version of Vengeance Paladin's Channel Divinity, with a saving throw but also Disadvantage on your opponent and a longer duration.
It’s funny because it’s basically just 2014 Hexblade until 11, but getting two extra attacks at the cost of one invocation is nutty, and being able to stack the Hexblade Weapon onto a Fiend or Archfey chassis is really good. Even so, just remove the extra extra attack at 11 and we’re gucci
My idea for improving how warlock spell casting feels: "You can cast spells up to [your pact slot level -2] that do not deal damage or cause a condition as a cantrip a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus (or maybe CHA modifier?)." You can use Shield or Invisibility a few times per day without feeling bad using half of your spell slots on a non-scaling low-level utility spell instead of your big damage or major control spells. Getting a few throwaway utility slots without having to multiclass would add a bit of depth, and it wouldn't come online until you hit 5th level (with 3rd level pact slots).
I very much love Celestial patron. Bit it needs some small upgrades. Personally I'd consider: 1. Replacing Flame Strike with Summon Celestial (The only Tasha summon that Warlock doesn't have. Fits VERY thematically) 2. Radiant Soul lets you add your charisma modifier to one fire/radiant damage roll 'a turn.' This adds more consistency with things like Flaming Sphere. It's about as effective as genielocks extra damage. 3. The Healing from the dice should also to be 1d6+Charisma modifier. As it stands, the Healing Light dice really do little other than quick pick ups
@requiestae1284 with the exception being fiendlock ..which is just slightly ahead of the rest..yes..people just don't play the PHB Warlocks much at all anymore. They are all underpowered or at best can be useful for a dip.
Eldritch Mind vs Warcaster: Warcaster also has a prerequisite, which means that you can't take it with Lessons of the First Ones, so it is only available as a feat at ASI acquisition levels.
An invocation like this would help: Gain two 1st lv Spell slots that recharge on a long rest. The spell slot lv increases with your Warlock level, 2nd at 5th lv, 3rd at 9th lv, 4th at 13th lv, 5th at 17th lv.
I think one thing might be being overlooked with the new agonizing blast invocation. There are several other features in this play test with similar effects, that apply to spells or cantrips, but they have very specific wording that this invocation lacks. The wording for those is “add blank to ONE of the damage rolls”. But this new invocation specifies just adding your charisma to the damage rolls. No limiter on how many if them. I believe this implies that any damage in cantrip with scale, the same with his invocation as eldritch blast would.
If there is one invocation I'd like to see is one that offers a choice of curated spells that you can cast once per long rest without expending a spell slot and not with a pact slot (repeatable). For warlocks that want a few more daily spell slots, that should scratch the itch, along with warlocks that want certain out-of-class spells. For the rest, they'll take other other invocations.
The real question is, whether Pact of Blade is *intended* to say Spellcasting Ability instead of Charisma. Ignoring every other class, the intent of Pact of the Blade is to make Warlocks SAD (single ability score dependent), but could have an unintended side effect of making Paladins, Bladesingers, etc much more powerful. It is a feat and is therefore much more expensive than a one level dip in Hexblade as was previously common; however, a Custom Lineage or Variant Human character taking the Eldritch Adept feat at Level 1 to become a Bladesinger or Paladin with Pact of the Blade will maintain full spell progression. I will say that the upside of Swords Bards being able to add their Charisma in damage to a Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade while only sacrificing 2 levels in Warlock to acquire that, is very fun and might be a considerable option for playtesting, assuming that the Charisma would be added to the initial hit and the rider/flame damage both which are both damage rolls. That would indeed be a very powerful level 5 character.
I like the direction blade pact is going. When it gets toned down, it feels like the warlock is walking that line between full caster and half caster. Assuming it was reasonably balanced, Blade pact feels like there is too much return on too little investment. There's potential in the modularity of the class to do something unique and create some cool character concepts. Been thinking of a flat damage reduction from Heavy Armor Master and temporary hitpoints from up casted at will False Life since it lacks that "As a 1st level spell" clause and combo that with refreshing fiend thp when False Life ran out. As an example, It would make sense for the previous iteration of warlock to have an innovation that returned medium armor proficiency back, then gave heavy armor proficiency at some point. When you had to choose that in place of the mystic arcanum invocations. At it stands right now there's too much return for too little investment. Doesn't seem like there's enough opportunity cost driven decisions to keep warlock balanced.
Bruh, I'm so hyped for GOO. Bladelock definitely needs work and I really hope they give a boost to Celestial patron because I like the idea of it, but Great Old One looks so incredibly fun. That said, the whole way though I was definitely thinking warlock is still an overly good multiclass 1-2 level dip, which always felt...silly, given the theme of warlock. If the DM doesn't put the PC on the hook from their patron (or you're just optimizing a one-shot character), it's just kind of a no-consequence no-brainer for so many builds, which I thought was something they wanted to move away from.
Treant, the Book of Shadows is ALWAYS reconjured at the end of a Short or Long Rest. This means that whether you use the slot or not, once your Rest is completed, you will still only ever get that one 1st level slot once per Long Rest.
(Android won't let me edit. 😂) But you're right in that the wording could be better. Because the way it's setup, it looks like the slot comes with the Book when it actually doesn't. It's the Invocation that grants the Spell Slot.
NGL, I was intrigued by the Playtest 5 Warlock. Halfcasting with Mystic Arcanum Invocations for higher level spells seemed like a nice balance between having more spells available and ensuring Warlock felt different from other full casters. I hope it comes back as maybe a new class one day. The idea of a spellsword is one dnd doesn’t have a direct translation for ATM.
I say give a choice between int or cha. Charisma has been used as the stat for casters who are naturally inclinced or gifted with magic where int is more about people who studied it. I think there is room for studied warlocks as well.
Say whatever you what about balance. I want a Skeleton Familiar, he's going to wear a suit, tophat and monacle, and his name is going to be Beuregard Cobblepot.
Pact of the tome needs to clarify if its lvl 1 spell slot it gives is a pact slot or an actual spell slot given the slot comes from a pact. Also its really good to take using the eldrich adept feat for find familir, shillelagh and booming or green flame blade.
39:00 JC did say that more spells are getting upcasting added when talking about the new twinned spell, so I think there's at least a strong possibility that more if not all warlock and patron spells level 4 and below will upcast. Maybe you could stack radiant soul with agonizing blast and create bonfire and then your party can repeatedly push people through it with weapon masteries or repelling blast.
This is the most exciting version of the warlock for me! It definitely needs some tweaking from a balance perspective but for me it’s pretty close to what I’d want. My only two things I think I’d want changed is a return of “Book of ancient secrets” as an invocation. I loved being a master of all rituals and I’d love something to enable that again. I also am not the fondest of patrons being selected at 3rd level. It feels narratively odd that you have powers from your patron by the fact you are a warlock but that patron mechanically can change until level 3. I think they should be close to that of the cleric in current 5e and have to be selected from day 0 and have a tiny feature to start with. In reality both of these don’t actually matter but are my preferences
One thing you missed, is that agonizing blast adds your Cha mod to the chosen cantrip's damage roll*s*, not the chosen cantrip's damage. This means that, in theory, if you chose a cantrip other than Eldritch Blast, like, say, Chill Touch, you'd not be adding your Cha mod once while eldritch blast gets it to every blast; just like eldritch blast gets it to every blast, Chill Touch would get it to every damage roll, so at 5th level, when Eldritch Blast has 2 blasts that each deal 1d10+Cha mod damage, Chill Touch would be dealing 2d8 + double your Cha mod damage, since you'd be adding your Cha mod to all damage roll*S* aka BOTH d8 rolls, meaning, yes, it would get added more than once, just like Eldritch Blast. Likewise, with the changes to Hex making the damage scale based on slot rather than number of hits, Eldritch Blast isn't coming ahead on hex damage either. There is still some advantages to taking it with Eldritch Blast, mind you...the main ones being that EB can multi-target with its blasts while almost all your other options can only single-target, and the fact it deals deals force damage, which is pretty much never bothered by resistances or immunities. However, the damage on other cantrips is now comparable enough to Eldritch Blast's damage that you actually might seriously consider slapping Agonizing on a Cantrip that has a good rider effect instead of on Eldritch Blast, like say Mind Sliver. The damage is slightly less, but still way more than any other caster, and you get the super-sweet rider on top of that, sacrificing the raw damage of EB for the added power of that rider. As stated, Agonizing Mind Sliver looks SUPER good under this, and bladelocks will LOVE agonizing Greed Flame Blade, Booming Blade etc....
I can't speak for others but, my excitement for Alter Self at Level 5 is purely for roleplay/aesthetic purposes. It's just a cool transformation gimmick. I don't think making Eldritch Blast scale with Warlock level would stop the 1-2 level Warlock dip... It would just stop the dipping to take Eldritch Blast. There's simply no reason to stay in Warlock long term (a byproduct of only having 2 Pact Slots). The invocations changes helps a little bit, but it's also more of a reason to take a Warlock dip and leave. Stronger Invocations = Better Dips Restricting Invocations to Warlocks = No one plays Warlock Stronger Invocations but Restricted to Warlocks = Maybe could work, but the Invocations would have to be insanely good/strong. If they aren't, No one plays Warlock. I really wish they would abandon Pact Slots. IMO Pact Slots/Pact Magic should be an entirely separate system. One of the things I tried, was making Warlocks a sort of "Prestige" class. Anyone can make a Pact with themselves, giving something up to get power/improve their own abilities. For instance, A Wizard forging a Pact to get a "Greater Familiar" that they could ride on and cast spells through, but if it dies, the Wizard dies. But something like that is not happening this edition.
I think it's okay that Bladelocks do a lot of damage in melee as long as they are prevented from picking up better armor via multiclassing. On paper it actually sounds reasonable that Bladelocks are the highest DPR melee attacker, but it becomes unreasonable when you consider that a simple Paladin dip can fix just about every problem they have. Dipping into Paladin grants them the utility they normally lack with spells like Bless and patches their AC. If Pact of the Blade had a stipulation where it stops working with armor equipped I think that would solve this issue and Bladelocks will truly be the glass cannon melee powerhouse.
I almost never see high level warlocks in my games. I really hope they keep the scaling of eldritch blast based on warlock levels. That combined with some very good invocation (eg the jump one) could make a couple of level dips stay good. With getting the patron soells that approach has also become even stronger
I still do not understand why people say that warlocks are so short rest hungry. Half the roster gets very big resources back on a short rest and everybody gets HP back.
I a good change for radiant soul is instead is fire resistance instead or resistance to both. And change it to “when you deal radiant or fire damage” instead of when you cast a spell that deals radiant or fire damage.
Or give them celestial spell you cast a warlock spell that deals damage. You can change that damage to radiant or fire. Also still change resistance to fire or give them both
I feel like all Pact Magic really needsto feel decent is another spell slot al lvl 6-7. Maybe if you don't want them to have 5 in total, reshuffle them - third around lvl 7 and fourth around lvl 15.
I personally don’t care for the extra spell they can regain. I would like to see like 1 free casting of each level of spells for your subclass spells. Limiting but gives the spells people desire.
That capstone is a phone-in. This is a WARLOCK. Make it fun, for deity's sake. Hoping you let me sit still for a minute until I get my spells back is not evocative or thematic or impressive or unnerving. All things a warlock should be. And, as always, your thorough deep-dives continue to be appreciated.
Investment of the Chain Master doesn't affect the Sprite's chance to render targets Unconscious. Our DC does help the target become more likely to get Poisoned for 1 minute, but knocking them out is unrelated to the DC. The target only falls Unconscious if their saving throw result is 5 or lower. Where our DC would help is if we use the Pseudodragon to knock enemies out. That triggers if the target fails the saving throw by 5 or more. While this is a lot more likely to achieve with our DC, the Pseudodragon has to get into melee, and has less defenses compared to the Imp who can deliver some respectable damage. Casting Darkness can work for either of them since one has Devil's Sight (120ft) and the other Blindsight (10ft). Making hit and run possible against some creatures Flyby-style.
The nerf to Hurl Through Hell is exactly what I wanted. A nerf to high level casters and a nerf to save-less features. I am a bit sad about the playtest 5 packet warlock lost, but I am very happy with the improvements to the invocations. I’d be ok with this warlock in the game.
One interesting modification regarding Warlocks changing pact magic when they level (or no longer being able to do this) might be to allow it, but only allow it for Pact of the Tome ... I think that pact needs a little more something, and this could be a good way to weave this back into the Warlock.
I think an Invocation that turns your first level spell into an additional slot of Pact level would make it absolutely wild. Maybe a more reasonable alternative would be a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd slot through a 7th level invocation.
@@AwesomeWookiee It could be a "family" of Invocations (all of them requiring Pact of The Tome & certain levels of Warlock; otherwise independent), each invocation giving an extra "upcast_only" spellslot [Non-Pact, Non-rechargeable by Sorcery Points, one-time-only per Long Rest] that only accepts spells of first level | . (PotT; War7): +1 Second Level "dummy" Spellslot. | . (PotT;War11): +1 Third Level "dummy" Spellslot. | . (PotT;War15): +1 Fourth Level "dummy" Spellslot | . (PotT;War17;one_dummy_Ss): The selected "dummy" spellslot is upgraded & can be used to "upcast" either a spell of first level TWICE (at its level, not consumed the first time), or cast a spell of its level ONCE. {Repeateable} | Note: No "dummy" spellslots of fifth level (by design). | Note2: Each upgraded ex-dummy Spellslot CAN upcast a first level spell & THEN cast a higher level Spell equal to its spelslot size [by design: using the flashy high level spells at the start is more costly].
I think that 6th lvl of celestial feature pairs really well with the dragonic sorcorer if you plan to specialize in fire magic. Thats a lvl 12 character though so it comes on late but 3d10 plus 15 fire damage plus elemental isnt bad. You can also quicken it and your leveled flame spells are getting plus 10. The main problem is immunity but transmute spell still exist.
I mean...I love Warlock. Thematically, it's my favorite class. The biggest weakness is that you don't get enough spell slots. The multiclassing thing is an issue MOSTLY because that in conjunction with Eldritch Blast being so powerful means almost nobody ever wants to take the class further than a few levels... Unfortunately, I've never BEEN ABLE to because the one DM I had for years kept restarting campaigns or making new ones. So, kinda got screwed on that.
In terms of plotting Pact Slots vs Spell Points (the Spell Slot variant), it matches very closely until level 9, where the Spell Point variant takes a fair lead - then it comes back into line at level 11. The third Pact Slot really should be at level 9, which is why you have the problem mentioned at 9:52.
Love that change, warlocks already get a great upgrade at 11 from cantrip/thirsting blade scaling & their first arcana anyway.
Also compare this with font of magic conversion and after 1 rest the warlock is equal or better than full casters at all levels except 8,9,10. The invocation updates + magical cunning really puts in work.
Damn, I just guessed that 9th level would probably be a better spot for the 3rd spellslot strictly based on vibes. I can't believe the spell point math works out that way as well
I'd argue it should be sooner, at lvl 7. The point total may be more than spellcasters, but they can't leverage all that power in one go.
Your suggestion creates a problem though. In my campaigns, we usually get about two fights in a day. There would be a huge difference as the warlock could cast 5th Level spells six times, where everyone else gets to cast them once or maybe twice. True, they have other spell slots, so it might not technically be more powerful, but it feels unfair for other casters.
The main reason I can see for the Alter Self excitement is finally having a quick disguise that holds up to physical inspection, as disguise self doesn’t do that.
I might be wrong but I think the main benefit is that it also works on creatures with truesight. This means that a character build for deception can now fool anyone.
Both good points, I think if they drop the concentration requirement it will really be a great, unique addition. Although MoMF would be completely obsolete if they did...
Of all the bad closed caption translations I've seen, going from "Mystic Arcanum" to "Mister Cocainum" has to be my favourite 😂
I feel like the Celestial gets a huge bump by having the spells always prepared. Lesser Restoration, Greater Restoration and Revivify are spells you hardly ever use, but are really valuable when you need them. Not having to waste limited learned spell slots on them whilst still having them available when needed is great.
Having them always prepared is nice because you can use scrolls for them too now. On some tables that means you never have to spend a spell slot on them.
@@benjaminkowal7310 That's still an option even without the changes. Spell scrolls don't need to be a prepared/known spell, it just needs to be on your class's spell list. And Revivify & the Restorations are considered Warlock spells for all Celestial Warlocks, regardless of whether they choose to have them known.
@@MatthewDragonHammer Agreed. I think I was confusing this rule with how Divine Soul Sorcerers work.
@@benjaminkowal7310 Ah, yeah, that makes sense.
Another thing is the amount of increase to the overall health pool of the party with temp hit points.
While it comes on late, with a table like mine that has 5-6 players, twilight cleric is banned, and inspirational leader is nerfed, I get sometimes 150 plus hp added. The buff to healing spells now also helps it out.
The 6th level feature is lackluster, but not outright terrible. Just wish it wasn’t radiant damage.
While I’m not satisfied with PT7 Warlock in terms of balance, I’m very excited to see Warlock get the support it needs to keep its unique design without being so Short Rest hungry. I am optimistic with the addition of Ritual spells and modifications of “at will” invocations.
Honestly bladelock looking very similar to 2014 except with an extra extra attack at 11, and (vitally) you don’t need to go Hexblade. As everyone has noted, the second extra attack at 11 is a problem, but if we cut that, balance is fine, and I _really_ like the pattern of gentle rebalance of wizards, while stepping everyone else up to more directly compete with them.
Chris mentioned it, Eldritch Adept: Pact of the Blade might be too good not to take on many martials, even ones which usually dump Cha. It’s now a feat tax for Paladins, and while I prefer access to a feat over a multiclass dip which screws Dex Pallies, feat taxes in general aren’t good for the game
@@mjp121
From a balance perspective, I 100% agree. From an in game, actual player perspective, though, it doesn't make much of a difference.
There's no such thing as an "insert thing" tax in the general community. %99.99 percent of players are playing a class because it's features look cool, not because it's 100+% over baseline dpr. For example, Monk is an objectively bad class, but more people play Monk than Cleric despite Cleric being an S tier class. Why? Because people want to play Goku, Jackie Chan, and Tony Ja, not Mercy.
Likewise, hexblade was way out of line and the new Pact of the Blade is way out of line... but who really cares? How many games are being totally ruined by an OP subclass that you just can't handle? How many players are bringing broken characters to the group campaign?
I've been playing for years and no race or class combo has ever destroyed the game. The worst games I've been in have all been because of someone's attitude, not their build.
@@Bladezeromusbalance doesn’t matter until it does- so long as everyone is within a certain range indeed who cares, but, for instance, the current Moon Druid imbalances the game in a way which makes it unfun at very low levels. Balance DOES matter, and having a supposed spellcasting class absolutely trounce martials in martial combat is a problem- and at 11, playtest 7 Warlock trounces martial characters in martial combat, no spells necessary.
That said I think you are missing my point by exaggerating the power of these features while at the same time claiming it doesn’t exist... Hexblade is an optimal choice in many builds, and if you never table with people who make basic optimal choices… well you are either a liar or massive statistical outlier. The thing is, that level of optimization isn’t problematic- it has an opportunity cost, and doesn’t upend the proverbial apple cart- games where the paladin has a level of hexblade play very similar to those where they don’t.
That said, build taxes are very real- 90% of gish builds take War Caster, 99% of casters build in concentration protection by 12, and many, many martial characters take Great Weapon Maater, Polearm Master, or Sharpshooter- they’re so much stronger than other options that it feels like intentional sabotage not to at least consider them. The problem isn’t that the existence of these feats break the game, the problem is that by having certain features so obviously better than others that those others get less attention. Speaking of, I’d like a citation that more players play monk (or that clerics are S tier.
@@mjp121
I neither think I'm a liar or an outlier nor do I believe I've missed your point. I believe you're simply adamant on talking over me on this subject.
The point I'm making is that, on paper, this stuff matters. In practical play, it almost never does. I never claim to have not played with min-maxers. As you can see, we are both Treeantmonk enjoyers which means we probably also watch other channels like Pack Tactics. There are 2 power gamers at my table including myself and it simply doesn't matter.
Your numbers are skewered by a bit of terminally online syndrome. Those build tax assumptions are only accurate regarding the builds of min-maxers and not applicable to normal play.
In reality, most players look at those feats and dont even think they're very good. They dont take GWM or Sharpshooter because they're scared to miss and they dont build in concentration protection because the DM never really targets them.
Moon Druid? The heck is a moon druid? Most people playing druid just want to do the thing where they spy as a bug on the wall then talk to some wolves. Being OP early game is basically a nonfactor because no one will notice or care.
What you call a "basic optimal choices" simply "doesn't fit their character." The only people who feel like they are intentionally sabotaging themselves are number crunchers because there really isn't much content in DnD5e that an average party can't prevail against. At 10th level and beyond the powerscaling is so cracked that no one really cares. If you're a full caster you're a demi-god (the real issue).
All I see here is the same mentality that killed off a bunch of wanna be Esports games. But DnD has no competitive scene, no viewing audience. There's no reason to balance the game for the 1% of people who sit down at character creation and say "I want to make a melee character, so I guess I'll make another battlemaster half orc, sentinel polearm fighter."
Since Bladelock came out I haven’t been at or seen a table that didn’t have at least one. The issue is they are too easy to build to be good and overshadow other characters in effectiveness in combat constantly. I rarely see monks from experienced players especially as levels go up as they run out of steam. This can be helped by working with DM to help them out in terms of specific items and bonuses.
I think the warlock’s spell slot issue would be entirely fixed if they brought back third to fifth level mystic arcanum as invocations from the other playtest. Keep sixth to ninth level mystic arcanum as a base class feature, but if you want more lower level spells, then you can spend invocations to get them. This would probably be a pact of the tome exclusive feature because that’s the option that focuses on spellcasting, but I’d be fine with that. You get a lot more invocations anyway, so it wouldn’t even be that big an issue.
I would probably be fine with that
The version of War Caster printed in the Expert Classes Playtest provides advantage on all Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration, not just those made as a result of taking damage.
Will say this with Celestial being there, it does fill a unique niche with it's healing plus RP-wise, it is a "good" warlock option to complement the evil devil and amoral fay (with GOO just fulfilling the occultist/Lovecraftian vibe).
It's an excellent counterbalance to the others and fits without being too niche. It just needs to feel more exciting.
I've played 1Barbarian / XCelestial Warlock as a sort of bad guy making a deal with a good guy in an act of desperation and it was fun as heck. I wish the 14th level feature was better tho, like let use it on allies too or something idk. It rarely comes up and isn't cool enough for once a long rest...
True. But it does need a little bump, maybe being able to substitute in Radiant damage for other damage types, and have the level 6 damage bump apply to all targets, but only once per spell.
@@killcat1971 Honestly rather it just turn into a new feature perhaps something more support enhancing. Like gives you the ability to reroll healing dice, and radiant damage dealing dice or add a 1d4 to any of those rolls. Agonizing blast seems to replace most of its use tbh. Especially if you could get it to synergize with healing light. Level 10 feature just needs a redesign temp hit points to heal spells and healing light perhaps. 14th feature should have another feature giving them some kind of celestial patron action, like calling on immobile concentrated beam from the positive realms heals or burns your enemies with radiant damage. Failing that some kind of sanctuary like ability around the warlock that lasts for as long as the warlock channels it.
@@tenaciousgamer6892 That's an interesting concept, tying other effects to the healing light die, making a very distinct difference from the base class.
Teleporting Bladelock of the Fey sounds amazing!
I love the idea of the goading escape - just teleporting around flipping off your enemies, daring them to try and chase you down. Very strong flavour.
“Nothing personal kid”
I wish they kept more Chain-specific invocations, considering that Chain can be picked alongside other pacts. I especially want Gift of the Ever-Living Ones.
If Pact Boons are going to stay as Invos, I want to see 4 boosting invocations for each boon.
There has been a flood of BG3 videos across all D&D related channels lately. But not Chris. He has decided not to reap the low hanging fruit. That is a man of principles.
The worst part about playing Warlocks is those weird power boosts at 11 and 17 in my opinion. The 3rd pact slot should be available from level 7 or 9 and the 4th from 13 or 15.
Also, to balance Bladelock I'd take away the 3rd attack of Thirsting Blade but up the die of Lifedrinker to 1D10 (only heal half rounded up).
LD Uses your HD anyway, so the healing is no big deal. If you survive the combat everybody does the same at short rest.
Honestly, I see tons of celestial warlocks, way more than fiends. Players love being a good themed warlock and the bonus action healing is really useful.
I made a Christmas-themed celestial warlock, it's my favorite character I've played
I worked with the DM for some custom magic items, but it started with the Naughty/Nice list being the pact of the tome book
It pairs *phenomenally* with the criminal background. I love Celestial Warlocks and they'll always be dear to my heart.
6th level feature sucks ass though.
@@AwesomeWookiee how does criminal pair with celestial? The skill proficiencies?
@@ItMeJishI also came here to also say I see tons of people recommend or say they liked playing the Celestial. However, I think among optimizers, it is way less common, so that’s probably why Treantmonk doesn’t see it nearly as often at his tables.
Yeah, I've played two, different backgrounds and patron concepts, but both were a blast and I just like the idea of being able to heal people by simply smiling at them.
I would love to see Celestial replace the 6th level feature with something defensive.
Maybe like "When you cast a Warlock spell that requires your concentration, you can grant a creature within 30 feet of you +2 to their Armor Class as long as you concentrate on the spell."
Also the damage on their 14th feature needs dialling up a TON of it's once per long rest.
The current level 6 feature is the only way for a blade warlock to keep up damage wise without thirsting blade (if they take agonizing blast for green flame blade and cast spirit shroud)
I saw the sixth level feature and wondered about having it optionally the damage type of Eldritch Blast (or just any warlock spell) to Radiant.
@@jasonsmith1950 green flame blade is a warlock spell, it outdamages Eldritch blast+hex if you put agonizing blast on GFB
I mean, damage resistance to Radiant is defensive. Granted it's one of the least common damage types for PCs to take, but still. Something like you proposed would be cool, though.
Radiant soul stacking with agonizing blast (particularly when you can pick up interesting options with pact of the tome) is nice.
One thing you didn't mention about the Archfey's (new) lvl 6 feature is that those additional effects on Misty Step like the invisibility can be added on any Misty Step cast, not just as a reaction. And with the reaction you also still have access to your 3rd level Misty Step enhancements.
P.S. The one invocation I am actually missing here is Voice of the Chain Master. It might not be that powerful, but it was very flavourful.
There's definitely some missing invocations and I hope they return.
Far scribe is one of my favorite invocations, thematically it was really cool. I hope we can see it return in later playtests
Personally, voice either needed to be, boosted a little, rolled into either base Pact of the Chain, rolled into another invocation, or at the very least, reworded to be a bit more clear. After so many re-reads of it, its still a little confusing whether or not you still need a bonus attack to see using the familiars' senses. Mostly though, I'm hoping the ones that aren't in the play test are just ones that WotC hasn't made any changes to or think really change out the playtest goes so they'll still appear in the book, just word for word what they were before. Or not, still the old versions are still compatible.
I definitely agree that Eldritch Blast should probably still scale based on Warlock level. Also, Pact of the Blade and Pact of the Tome, should have some type of prerequisite so that they can't be taken through the Eldritch Adept feat. (Maybe just requiring +1 level in Warlock)
I disagree about Pact of the Blade and Pact of the tome needing a prerequisite. The ability to take them through Eldritch Adept is a good and flavorful thing for quite a few classes. Given the upgrades to either of them are still very much locked behind Warlock levels, it doesn't intrude more on class identity than say... martial adept and metamagic adept does for Battle masters and sorcerers. I'd actually want pact of the chain to drop to the same lack for much the same reason.
So many cool builds are opened up now, that don't have to take a level (or three) of warlock just for one feature and a bunch they'll barely ever use. Also Eldritch Adept was kind of... barren for non-locks to take. Like whats in there for non-locks are... basically stuff every other class has better options for... even a few racial options are competitive with a few of them.
Now, it might be good for the game if the Eldritch Adept feat. (and Martial and metamagic adept for that matter) itself is given a character level +4 prerequisite, so 'locks get to be the earliest ones to play around with the feat and for enough time that that they are always the best at it.
I don't think the Eldritch Adept feat will exist.
Loved the changes to invocations in this playtest. They buffed (or removed) all the underutilized invocations in useful ways. At will arcane eye at 9th level is especially exciting. Interesting to see that the pacts don't have any prerequisite so they can be taken by Eldritch Initiate, which seems very good (Pact of the Blade for Paladins and Swords bards, Pact of the Tome for any non-caster looking for utility, a spell slot, and eldritch blast, and Pact of the Chain for anyone who wants a nicer familiar). However, it begs the question: who did these characters make a pact with? When you're a Warlock it's obvious, your patron. For other characters, it seems unclear. Also, I think the reason they included Celestial was for thematics, to balance with Fiend. They did the same thing with the Druid circles. I definitely would like to see them spice up the Celestial if they want to put it in the 2024 PHB. Fully agree on Blade pacts being overpowered. Thirsting blade is definitely eating the Fighter's lunch and should not get that third attack.
The feat says you make a minor Pact with some powerful entity. A Paladin who accidentally made a deal with a Fiend, or a Bard that Black Beauty'd a Unicorn make lots of sense and have a lot of narrative fun!
Jeremy Crawford talked about this in one of the playtest videos. He said that the Warlock can get power from many sources. It can be some random powerful monster you made a deal with. It can be some ancient spell you found. It can be some divine source of power that anyone can tap into if you know how to. However you want to flavor it.
I think it makes multi-classing into a Warlock easier narratively because you don’t have to think of a patron if you’re only 1-2 levels in.
Thanks for the answers to my question. Forgot to check the flavor text of the Eldritch Adept feat and now that makes more sense.
I hadn't even considered that gaze of two minds can work on familiars. Now a warlock can cast spells from basically a tiny flying invisible turret from 60ft away, and it doesn't even break invisibility because the warlock is the one casting, and if the familiar dies they can replace it with an action to keep sniping people from safety.
Gaze of two minds needs to either limit the creature type to exclude familiars or remove the ability to cast spells from their place, because right now it's busted.
How many spells you going to cast in total 2 or 3? How strong is the familar 1 to 8hps? Return fire at the it will take it out early in the battle. you gain 60feet range usefull. You gain the ability to scout and abush. Artifisures get a mobile cannon use every round and stiill cast them selves. Rouges add 1 to 10d6 on an ambush you just get your spell off. Not OP compaired to others.
@@BeachandHills-hb2pq an imp can fly and turn invisible, and this invocation allows you to hide somewhere and keep summoning them, at which point they will turn invisible again and never reveal your hiding place. You can stay safe and sound through walls and never see any danger while you keep remotely firing spells at enemies.
The artificer turret is visible and does not share your senses, it's made to help the artificer while they are engaging, but an artificer cannot remotely control it like a familiar because they don't see through it's senses, and the turret alone is incredibly weak, it wouldn't do anything by itself while the warlock can use their full power from the imp's position.
You also seem to not have noticed the warlock can cast find familiar with an action without expending a spell slot. So unlike the artificer, the warlock can keep creating the familiar all day.
So no, the artificer turret isn't even remotely comparable to this new warlock's familiar with gaze of two minds. The warlock is actually broken here.
edit: typo
Warlock is my favorite class so im always happy seeing it getting buffed hopefully
In regards to Master of Myriad Forms, it is entirely because of the "The changes wrought by this spell fail to hold up to physical inspection" paragraph in disguise self that I consider it the superior option. I play games with a lot of social interaction and in those Disguise Self would almost certainly get noticed, which renders it significantly worse than Alter Self which prevents your disguise from so easily breaking. The natural weapons and underwater stuff is just a nice bonus.
Now if you are only trying to pass quick visual inspection, Disguise Self is probably better, however I find that comes up a lot less.
I would like to see Book of Ancient Secrets added as an Invocation for Pact of the Tome - "On your adventures, you can add other ritual spells to your Book of Shadows. When you find such a spell, you can add it to the book if the spell's level is equal to or less than half your warlock level (rounded up) and if you can spare the time to transcribe the spell." Also, the Far Scribe invocation should come back. I tinkered a bit with multiclassing 3 levels of Bard, College of Valor (UA6) - med armor+shield and extra spell slots. The Warlock rest of the way. Not a Hexbard build but still pretty close.
I agree. I don't really care about the other boosts to Pact of the Tome. I mean they are good, but book of ancient secrets gave a versatility to the Pact which was unique and not OP by any means. Now they can cast rituals, but without BoAS they will be limited to rituals of the warlock list, since the common spell lists were abandoned.
1000% percent agree and I don't know why more people don't realize the potential and have yet to see an explanation for why the adding other rituals was taken out. Old school tomelock with BoAS could rack up (for a bit of gold) a truckload of utility spells. I cast Waterbreathing on my party every morning, went everywhere on a Phantom Steed, used Unseen Servant all the time and Commune was much better than the risky Contact Other Plane. Commune with Nature was also a very nice ritual (if you have a cooperative DM).
Agreed, bring back book of ancient secrets!
I would like it if it was you can cast rituals without taking the extra time required.
4:40 - the reason they remove changing ivocations is because some invocations have pacts as prereqs. If you have pact of the blade and eldritch smite, then at level switch pact of the blade for something else, then eldritch smite is no longer valid because you don't have the prereq anymore, so you'd have to be allowed to swap both invocation, which wotc probably feels is too complicated mechanically, so instead remove changing altogether.
You could just have certain invocations have a tag like versatile which would allow them to be traded and make Boons not something you can trade.
One thing that you didn't consider regarding Lessons of the First Ones, is that there are plenty of Level 4 Feats that don't have Prerequisites either. Although in the actual book, level 4 might become a listed Prerequisite. Currently, the Warlock can also take Resilient or Weapon Training too, which are significant because they also increase your Attribues. Even more significantly, ASIs have become Feats without Prerequisites so in the current state of the game, the Warlock can use Lessons of the First Ones to pick up an ASI.
I caught that level four was separate from the list of prerequisites but I didn't even think about ASI. They are definitely going to have to at least exclude that one if the intention was to also allow the option to take basic 4th level feats.
@@XanderHarris1023 It turns out that they already did. UA7 has a small Feats section that contains nothing but ASI and it was changed to have the Prerequisite of being level 4.
Invocations are fun. They’re why I like Warlocks.
In my last feedback about the Warlock I presented a idea that was something like Magical Cunning, but my idea was for replacing Pact Slots coming back on short-rests. I named them Gifts (or Patron's Gifts something like that) and this specificaly was Gift of Restorance, it had a duration of 10 minutes (like most ritual spells) and you needed to maintain concentration throughout the duration, as you entered a state of trance. At the end of this ritual, the Warlock would get all his Pact Slots back, and it could be done 2 times per long-rest initially, and at later levels scaling to 3 times.
For invocations, I noticed the omission of a couple I liked, namely Cloak of Flies and Tomb of Levistus. Cloak of Flies probably unpopular, but I liked the flavor of it.
Also Gift of the Ever Living Ones, I loved that one. Maxed all your healing dice, even Hit Dice.
That one's amazing if you can pair it with Beacon of Vitality through items/multiclassing@@keeganmbg6999
Those are all XGtE invocations. The intent isn't to port over all of those, but certainly give WotC feedback to request those if there is concern about backwards compatibility.
This is the first UA I’ve looked at - has there been any commentary or voting on dropping gift of the ever living ones?
@@stonebo1t986 Nah, none before this. They didn’t have it in the last one either.
I never considered playing one dnd until now..... this makes me unreasonably happy and excited. I've always loved warlocks narratively, and now they are mechanically appealing, if not perfectly balanced, aswell!
I think a solid way of fixing warlocks access to spellcasting would be to allow one casting from each level of patron spells without a spell slot per long rest. that also helps a bit with the spells that lack an upcast benefit, because they aren't being upcast when you use them this way. Not sure how to concisely and clearly word a feature like that, especially with level 1 and 2 patron spells being merged together and gained at level 3, but the net effect would be 5 additional spell casts per day by level 9 but with limitations on what spells can be cast that way and at what level. Then you could remove magical cunning, which helps out the capstone feature because at present as you already get half its benefit at a much earlier level, you're only really gaining half of its benefit as a capstone, and its already not a great capstone. It also means that a decent amount of your spellcasting is directly tied to your patron in some way as it can only be used on your patron spells, which is fine thematically because your patron is the source of your magic
This is the way
Really like this, would really incentivize GOOlocks to use all the utility spells they get
I believe the reason the designers are pushing for the recovery features to only recover things if you've expended all uses is to incentivize players to actually USE their features to the fullest. Too often I see players hoarding class resources TBH, being too stingy with ki or spell slots or sorcery points.
That's my two cents on that design decision at least!
Something that's missing from Tome Pact since Book of Ancient Shadows is missing now is that they can't learn any ritual like a wizard learns a spell. Something which in my opinion isn't really a dangerous feature and I hope they bring back because it's very thematic in my opinion in regards to what tome warlock represents. Yes it makes them the best Ritual Caster admittedly but they used to trade an invocation for that plus the ability to ritual cast, that's not really the end of the world since they can't/couldn't cast these spells except as rituals and the ritual spell list is heavily curated.
I currently play an Archfey warlock for character reasons the new features are amazing by comparison to the old ones.
For the celestials searing vengeance ability giving the blinded condition, any attack to a blinded enemy is at advantage or, sense they're blind, you can retreat without taking an opportunity attack. So they may have thought that it would be a unique way of letting you choose to stay and fight or run away.
By the time you get it most monsters have blind sight so it doesn't matter and doesn't help you escape.
I am not giving your comment a thumbs down because you might have a very different experience with this feature.
I'm realizing my mistake that this should end with you can run away as long as they don't have another way to see you.
I like the idea of your skeleton familiar suddenly growing wings. It's funny.
Eldritch Spear is perfect for Spelljammer or any campaign where you have vehicle combat. That also means that at T4 you can out range even a longbow with EB.
Thank you Treantmonk!
I hope to see a return of the Patron spells system they had for UA5 Warlock, which gave you free castings of your Patron Spells. It doesn't fully solve the spell slot problem, but it could be a thematic and flavourful way to mitigate it.
I like how it forces creative usage of those patron spells too. My DM has given my genie warlock a few free uses of Gust of Wind every day and it's been really flavorful while also letting me engage with an underused spell.
If the Warlock got one each of 1st, 2nd, -3rd- slots it would open up so many options for many of the small spells that you just can't afford to cast as a Warlock but would make quality of play so much more satisfying, by being useful in so many small moments.
Pact Boons definitely need a requirement like “at least 1 level in warlock” to prevent every martial from taking Eldritch Adept to take Pact of the Blade.
Scaling stuff like Eldritch Blast off of your warlock level instead of character level is pretty important as well (though part of me would want that to extend to all cantrip scaling to align with extra attack)
I prefer a feat tax on Paladins/Valor Bards over a multiclass Hexblade tax- feels much less restrictive and actually less cheesy imo. Honestly Pact of the Tome may be more problematic- it’s a strong spellcasting feat option.
@@mjp121This. It isn't even necessarily cheesy, more like a QoL change like they made to Fiendish Vigor - people were already doing them (getting the Hexblade bonuses on Charisma martial classes through a 1-2 level dip), this just streamlines it at the cost of a background/Human bonus feat to go into Eldritch Adept. If anything it feels more elegant a solution and allows for a straight 1-20 progression in a single class rather than trying to optimize a multiclass if that's the identity you want.
But agree, Pact of the Tome is definitely more problematic. It butts heads with Magic Initiate way too much.
I think Eldritch Adept is dead
I love the new Warlock. It is so much fun. Making it balanced feels like a relatively small amount of work as well. Make Weapon Pact scale with Warlock Level, remove bonus damage from Lifedrinker, and then reevaluate and do another smaller nerf if needed, and keep on reevaluating.
I think it's art to really lean into the invocations since those are really what make warlocks so fun to build. Warlocks sit in a weird spot where they're not sturdy enough to be melee fighters but they're also too spell-starved to hang with wizards and sorcerers. The invocations are good, solid tools with a lot of uses you can give them, and especially outside combat some.invocations and the high CHA really set them up to shine.
I played my UA7 Lvl 12 PotB Archfey Warlock last night. I have never played a Warlock before but am loving the flavor of this class! The first fight began with a mob and two Stone Giants at a distance and so cast Banishment on those two and it landed. Now I have to concentrate and so I kept my distance and EB'd the others. When I brought the Giants back we melees were in flanking position. Their very first swing at me hit me for notable damage (and why I am averse to relying on concentration spells for melee damage a-la Spirit Shroud) but I used Hellish Rebuke which finished him off so no further attack on me and my 2nd Pact Slot is gone. With the 2nd Stone Giant I got a crit and so used my third and last spell slot for Eldritch Smite and gave about 70 dmg if memory serves. So in one fight and in four or five rounds I am out my Pact Spell Slots. I did cast Magical Cunning afterward and got two back and I like how this urges you to not save your spells so much since they have to be expended. I really think you have to sit down and play these classes to really know how they work rather than just look at the Class Sheet and think you'll know how it plays out. I also think the Warlock is at its prime about 11-12th level. I love he flavor of this class: when you do something big, you go big!...since you cast most everything at 5th level.
Great video! I agree 100% with your concern about Eldritch Blast. It has always acted like extra attack (after adding Agonizing Blast) but scales purely based on character level rather than class level. It was reigned in some by not having any damage boosting feats, but it made sense to me when you chose it as the baseline because of how easy that damage is to achieve. And this version makes it even easier to achieve since you only need a 1 level dip. That even gives you access to the level 19 ability increase (with the increased cap of 22) if you want it. I really hope they address this somehow.
I currently play a tweaked version of your Voice from Beyound GOOlock in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus and I love playing him.
As soon I heard the changes of Awakened Mind, my heart broke. Yes two-way-telepathy is a buff, yes the new distanz is a buff and yes the breakable line of sight is a buff as well. But there are also great nerfs... the limitation in Action economy, the limitation on how many creature the GOO can use it at the same, the limition on shared languages and worst of all the limitation in uses. Yes most of the limitations are needed to allow the new level 6 to exist without being absurdly overpowered and yes as soon as you make it to level, 6 I could be convinced that it's for the better of the Subclass. Personally, I will miss the old Awakened Mind anyways. I have many reasons to think so. First of all, you are less likely to share your new observations with your party without sharing them with someone else (enemies, guards or maybe a friendly NPC you don't want to scare). Further more are you less inclined to tryout new strategies in the heat of battle which need your opponents to be uninformed in order to work propperly. And to don't create a too large Wall of Text, it is so much fun to "freak someone out" when you don't have to fear major consequences. Or more than one if you really like to.
In my eyes every other change off this new GOO is at least ok. I guess my only hope for the GOO is that they somehow manage to bring back the old flavor of Awakened Mind without braking the subclass. 🙁
Instead of Magical Cunning, they should just have Mystic Arcana for every spell level, not just 6 and up. I also like the skeleton familiar because it allows for a Pseudo Animate Dead for the Warlock.
That seems like a lot to me
@@TreantmonksTemple Maybe, but as the option would be locked to a single spell per level, I don’t think it would be too bad.
Just give them another Pact slot around lvl 6, or at least reshuffle them to get the third one earlier.
@@antongrigoryev6381yeah I think this is the better option. A 3rd spell slot into 5 at higher levels is more impactful.
They experimented with *literally doing that*, and the feedback was abysmal when people realised they would have to give up invocations to get those extra mystic arcanums, I mean they aren't exactly free, and because of that, there was no point to take any other invocations because spells are always the best class features, so yeah, people hated it.
All they can do with this one, is a 1 minute ritual for an extra high level spell, and an extra 1st level spell for tomelocks
You cannot give warlocks as many spell slots as wizards because warlocks get everything back on a short rest, and there are no limits to the number of short rests in a day so a 10th level warlock, gets up to 16 5th level spells in a day, of theoretical power (if warlocks had animate dead on their spell list they would be unbelievably broken beyond the hell their patron is from)
When Pack tactics looked over the 5th UA, I don't remember if he said 2 or 3 short rests, but if 2, that means at his table 10th level warlocks get 7 5th level spells over a day, while wizards get say, 3 including arcane recovery
if that is the case, how much is 3 4th level, 3 2nd levels, and 3 1st level slots even worth? especially when warlocks do *not* have defensive spells like shield or absorb elements, and utility spells like misty step are now freely included in say, the archfey warlock, and 1st level damaging spells are no better than eldritch blast anyway
ok, so, is a 5th level slot worth both a 4th level, and a 3rd level slot combined? that is the question here, well we can have a look at metamagic point costs for spells to see if there is some equality elsewhere:
if a sorcerer spends their 3rd level slot, and their 4th level slot, it turns out yes, they can exactly afford one 5th level slot with the 7 sorcery points
this means that at least from a balance standpoint, one 5th level slot is worth roughly a 3rd and a 4th level slot combined, and what with the whole invocations thing, agonising blast, new pact of the tome, etc, that pretty much covers for 1st and second level slots
at 10th level, you have 7 invocations
at 10th level, a wizard has 7 1st and second level spells
also, we already know that, from alter self from the 5th level invocation, is worth the same as a second level spell, being that it allows you to actually cast a second level spell, another one is one with shadows, which allows you to cast invisibility, which is a 2nd level spell, almost as if you had 2nd level spell slots to cast it with
now, look at the warlock spell list, other than misty step, invisibility, are there any other second level spells you would even want to cast at all? genuinely, the warlock spell list isn't something that more 1st and 2nd level slots would help with, because it doesn't really contain any good 1st or 2nd level spells, and in terms of power level, it's fairly reasonable to establish that a 2nd level spell (which you have at will in invocations), and a 5th level spell, is fairly equivalent to using a 4th level spell one turn, and a 3rd level spell the next, at least it was designed to work that way
If all of that is indeed the case, then I think the devs actually did a fantastic job of giving the warlock more spells to play with, (making better invocations, so that you are still doing spell-like things besides eldritch blast in combat) which still fall within the parameters of the original design, without redesigning the warlock as a halfcaster, which regarding internal playtests, was apparently the only other remotely balanced solution they had besides making them a full caster with almost no invocations, no pact boons, etc etc
if anything, I think it would be great if there were more options at 5th level for invocations, which allowed for unlimited use of a 2nd level utility spell, like they did with alter self and invisibility and levitate and eldritch blast scaling to 2 beams, and I am all for keeping those as is because they are great, I think maybe spider climb would actually be a great option, and I would take it if that were an option at 5th level
Thematically Warlock is one of the best classes. I am really hoping they could give them an extra spell slot around level 7. Honestly few tables actually short rest more than twice per day so it shouldn't break the game while keeping the warlock going for more!
I get one short rest if that in most of my games. 2 spell slots is shit.
Level 9 is the best level for the 3rd slot.
Issue I think with pact boons as invocations are that they could represent stronger packs of features when they weren't invocations and also different core playstyles for the warlock. But I can see the advantages to them being invocations so not hugely worried about the change.
I see Celestial talked about a lot on Reddit forums. However, I think the difference is that it’s non-optimizers who play it. This may explain why you find it to be rare at your tables full of optimizers.
Compared to a Genie that can just wish for Aura of Vitality, reincarnation, or mass cure wounds...it isn't even close to being the optimal subclass for healing as a Warlock. It is the first character I played past level 7 and it has been fun. Not having access to Wish though kind of makes all other Warlocks look like trash from an optimization perspective imho.
I think the best solution to the warlock dip isn't to make eldritch blast scale with warlock level but to have agonizing blast scale with warlock level. "You can apply your charisma modifier to the damage rolls of your cantrip once per turn. At the following warlock levels it improves. At 5th level it becomes 2 times per turn, at 11th level 3 times per turn, at level 17 4 times per turn"
They should do something like they did with Dark Ones Blessing, for Long Death monks too.
Then you don't need to pull the bag o rats trick to make it viable 🤔
I do admit, that I like the change of the different pacts being considered invocations, as well as the increase of the number of invocations themselves for more build versatility. 🤙
I don't like the change of hurl thru hell, but I really like the improvements to the archfey, and goolicks.
I think hurl though hell is still really good. While it provides a save it’s still a spell that you can just add on top of an attack with no extra action, instead of something that feels like a wasted turn if the enemy saves.
One change they should make though is if an enemy saves you can fry it again after a short rest.
Pact of the Tome:
1. At the end of a short/long rest, you create this book. THE BOOK grants you these effects (Cantrips, Rituals, Spell Slot, Spellcasting Focus).
2. The book disappears if you conjure another book with this feature, or if you die.
Because the book is what's granting the extra spell slot, taking another rest to conjure another book will delete the old book, and thus delete the extra spell slot. So no, the wording doesn't let you get infinite slots by repeatedly resting.
The Great Old One Subclass seems to work "backwards": |
. Lvl 11: Pact of The Blade + (other related invocations), you attack physically 1 target & it is great. |
. Lvl 10: Eldritch Hex (targeting Wisdom), so the enemy has a higher chance to fail the next feature: |
. Lvl 6: Clairvoyant Combatant (you better make it work with the 1 free use, or multiclass 3 to 5 levels in other fullcaster classes for repeated attempts). |
Now you have advantage against 1 target (that has disadvantage against you), making 3 attacks to it per action.
-> Use 1 invocation for Medium Armor & Shields, another for Armor of Agathys.
By using Booming Blade, one if your attacks bypasses normal resistencies (enemies resisting psy damage usually also deal psy damage, getting 1/4 of it in retaliation).
In the game I'm running right now, a lot of travel is taking place per day. I made it so that between fights are Short Rests, to great acclaim. Fighter gets to Surge every Fight, Cleric gets to Channel Divinity every fight (Light so nova damage is HUGE), and the Warlock gets about 6-8 slots a day. Mixed with free cast Invocations, the Warlock is already casting way, WAY more leveled spells than the rest of the party, the casters of which get 9 total slots. This is all fine as is because I talked to the table and we can all respect the approximate power level of each party member to not power game too hard (but it's of course fine in doses.)
If our Warlock, who is a Hexblade by chance of backstory, got the changes listed here, he'd instantaneously outpace the rest of the party in number of casts, strength of casts, physical damage, and even AC. There would not be a single aspect of the game he would be lacking in. As such, he has outright said he doesn't want to touch this playtest at all, because it would effectively overcharge him for little to no cost, and even refund him Invocations and a Subclass to do so.
TLDR: The number of slots and casts was never the problem, it's that WotC assumes there's a universal Short Rest standard, when there's not. Have a Warlock when the table rests once a day, they'll be lacking. Rest 3 times or more a day with free spell Invocations? Literal non-stop casts. Short Rests are the issue, just make them like 10 minutes max twice a day or something so that the disparity isn't so massive some tables are begging for buffs while others have to actively nerf themselves to not be gods.
I know I’m an outlier but I always liked the Celestial Warlock. I played it in our Desent into Avernus campaign and had a blast. I took the pact of the tomb and agonizing blast with my winged Tiefling and I always felt like I could contribute no matter what was going on. The party especially liked the free temporary hit points every rest. Very underrated in my opinion.
One note on Contact Other Plane: while the drawbacks of failing the throw are significant, they all last only until a long rest anyway, so you can cast the spell every day before your long rest, assuming you have enough HP to survive the psychic damage. Automatic save against that isn't all that big of a deal.
On a side note, I love that spell. Once got an entity into a different plane using Banishing Smite before using Contact Other Plane to ask it for what it knew. Not exactly the most RAW use of the spell, but man it was funny.
As is, multiclassing 1 lvl into warlock will still be super popular for Bards and Paladins with the way Pact of the Blade works.
Pact of the Blade is very obviously favored in this playtest, which is awesome and i can't wait to try it, but what bothers me is the lack of invocations for the other pacts. Blade got 3 whole invocations, tome and chain only got 1.
There are lots of other invocations we didnt see, and I worry with the lack of transparency that we might not see them return at all. You cant even argue that we arent seeing these invocations because they were from xanathars and tasha's, because the ones we see in the playtest are from those books as well!
Understandably, Book of Ancient Secrets was merged with tome, so it makes sense why its gone. But we're also missing Aspect of the Moon and Far Scribe! They may not be the most powerful but they're very fun flavor options and I personally love playing with them.
For Chain pact though, we are missing Voice of the Chain Master (okay), Chains of Carceri (underwhelming), and Gift of the Ever-Living Ones (which is definitely the most powerful of the bunch). These invocations always felt a bit lackluster and it makes me sad to see that instead of changing any of them wizards opted to remove them entirely.
And even from what we do have, Investment of the Chain master feels very lackluster. (Im going off the assumption that we are playing with the 5e version of find familiar, because thats what both invocations imply):
-The fly and swim speed is redundant because you can choose a familiar with those speeds anyways
-Who cares about attacking with your bonus action and changing the damage type, if the attack bonus doesn't scale with your level and instead uses the creature's lackluster bonus to attack?
-Using your own DC is okay if you use the poison attacks, but good luck hitting because, again, their attack bonus doesn't increase at all
-The damage resistance is okay, but at higher levels this is completely useless because your familiar will have so few hitpoints in the first place
Pact of the Chain definitely needs the most work here. We need to see these other invocations return, or for brand new ones to be introduced in their place. Chain pact feels kinda uninteresting and the invocations never really changed much.
I'm also confused as to why pact of the chain is a 2nd level invocation? why do we not have access to it at 1st level when the other invocations are there, is there any specific reason for that?
This is the first time I’ve been excited to play a straight classed Warlock since the launch of 5e. Yes, Pact of the Blade needs its damage output reduced. Yes, Chain needs some clarification. But I believe they have narrowed this down to the right track. Now do it for Ranger!!!
Pact of the blade needs its damage output to stay where it is, otherwise you’re gonna have the same problem as 5e where every warlocks most optimal damage is always just EB + agonizing blast + hex, regardless of if they mean to be melee or ranged
I still think that the number of Pact Magic Spell Slots should go up in the same progression as Proficiency.
So they max out with 5?
@@sykune No, 6. It'd be:
Levels 1-4 = 2 Pact Slots.
Levels 5-8 = 3 Pact Slots.
Levels 9-12 = 4 Pact Slots.
Levels 13-16 = 5 Pact Slots.
Levels 17-20 = 6 Pact Slots.
Ok, so I have been playing one of Indestructoboy's classes, the zodiac, in one of our campaigns. It has the same spell slot progression as the warlock (it even has a version of the quickened spell slot restoration feature the playtest added).
But it feels like I am casting so much more. The reason is simple: The zodiac gets rituals. They can even cast all divination spells on their spell list as rituals.
Now that every class gets to cast rituals, all they need to do is give the warlock a few more spells known and class exclusive rituals. That fixes the problem of not getting to feel like a full spellcaster.
For me the archfey warlock was the one I played for flavor, and I'm delighted to see it become a really interesting mechanical option. I had a knee jerk reaction to the pacts as invocations portion of this playtest, but have come around to appreciating it if they can iron out the balance issues. In particular I think pact of the blade is threading a needle. It needs to be better than Eldritch blast, with simple options while not being OP when you layer on all the options. I wonder how much it would help if you removed the option for heavy weapons.
I love that they finally fixed devil's sight. But completely forgot to also change truesight xD
You didn't mention it in the vod, but you also gain advantage against that creature for the duration of the bond. In essence Clairvoyant Combatant is a better version of Vengeance Paladin's Channel Divinity, with a saving throw but also Disadvantage on your opponent and a longer duration.
Now that i think about it, you could take the old pact boons using eldritch adept as a nonwarlock.
The Pact of the Blade is OP now, but combined with the teleportation of Archfae you have a really strong teleporting melee character.
It’s funny because it’s basically just 2014 Hexblade until 11, but getting two extra attacks at the cost of one invocation is nutty, and being able to stack the Hexblade Weapon onto a Fiend or Archfey chassis is really good.
Even so, just remove the extra extra attack at 11 and we’re gucci
@@mjp121 I mean Hexblade wasn't bad,
So allowing it to combine with other subclasses might be a bit much.
I think it's fair reparations for 9 years of being underpowered!
My idea for improving how warlock spell casting feels: "You can cast spells up to [your pact slot level -2] that do not deal damage or cause a condition as a cantrip a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus (or maybe CHA modifier?)." You can use Shield or Invisibility a few times per day without feeling bad using half of your spell slots on a non-scaling low-level utility spell instead of your big damage or major control spells. Getting a few throwaway utility slots without having to multiclass would add a bit of depth, and it wouldn't come online until you hit 5th level (with 3rd level pact slots).
I very much love Celestial patron. Bit it needs some small upgrades.
Personally I'd consider:
1. Replacing Flame Strike with Summon Celestial (The only Tasha summon that Warlock doesn't have. Fits VERY thematically)
2. Radiant Soul lets you add your charisma modifier to one fire/radiant damage roll 'a turn.' This adds more consistency with things like Flaming Sphere. It's about as effective as genielocks extra damage.
3. The Healing from the dice should also to be 1d6+Charisma modifier. As it stands, the Healing Light dice really do little other than quick pick ups
chainlocks also used to get gift of the ever-living one, which was great on a celestial warlock.
I feel like your suggestions would at least address why this subclass isn't more popular.
@@benjaminkowal7310 Celestial's power lines up pretty well with the PHB warlocks, which is unfortunate that it came out next to Hexblade.
@requiestae1284 with the exception being fiendlock ..which is just slightly ahead of the rest..yes..people just don't play the PHB Warlocks much at all anymore. They are all underpowered or at best can be useful for a dip.
Eldritch Mind vs Warcaster: Warcaster also has a prerequisite, which means that you can't take it with Lessons of the First Ones, so it is only available as a feat at ASI acquisition levels.
An invocation like this would help: Gain two 1st lv Spell slots that recharge on a long rest. The spell slot lv increases with your Warlock level, 2nd at 5th lv, 3rd at 9th lv, 4th at 13th lv, 5th at 17th lv.
I think one thing might be being overlooked with the new agonizing blast invocation. There are several other features in this play test with similar effects, that apply to spells or cantrips, but they have very specific wording that this invocation lacks. The wording for those is “add blank to ONE of the damage rolls”. But this new invocation specifies just adding your charisma to the damage rolls. No limiter on how many if them. I believe this implies that any damage in cantrip with scale, the same with his invocation as eldritch blast would.
I think no matter how many dice you roll for a single attack it’s still one damage roll
If there is one invocation I'd like to see is one that offers a choice of curated spells that you can cast once per long rest without expending a spell slot and not with a pact slot (repeatable). For warlocks that want a few more daily spell slots, that should scratch the itch, along with warlocks that want certain out-of-class spells. For the rest, they'll take other other invocations.
That’s called mystic arcanum. Maybe if they can give us mystic arcanum’s for spell lvls 1-5?
The real question is, whether Pact of Blade is *intended* to say Spellcasting Ability instead of Charisma. Ignoring every other class, the intent of Pact of the Blade is to make Warlocks SAD (single ability score dependent), but could have an unintended side effect of making Paladins, Bladesingers, etc much more powerful. It is a feat and is therefore much more expensive than a one level dip in Hexblade as was previously common; however, a Custom Lineage or Variant Human character taking the Eldritch Adept feat at Level 1 to become a Bladesinger or Paladin with Pact of the Blade will maintain full spell progression. I will say that the upside of Swords Bards being able to add their Charisma in damage to a Booming Blade or Green-Flame Blade while only sacrificing 2 levels in Warlock to acquire that, is very fun and might be a considerable option for playtesting, assuming that the Charisma would be added to the initial hit and the rider/flame damage both which are both damage rolls. That would indeed be a very powerful level 5 character.
I like the direction blade pact is going. When it gets toned down, it feels like the warlock is walking that line between full caster and half caster. Assuming it was reasonably balanced, Blade pact feels like there is too much return on too little investment.
There's potential in the modularity of the class to do something unique and create some cool character concepts. Been thinking of a flat damage reduction from Heavy Armor Master and temporary hitpoints from up casted at will False Life since it lacks that "As a 1st level spell" clause and combo that with refreshing fiend thp when False Life ran out.
As an example, It would make sense for the previous iteration of warlock to have an innovation that returned medium armor proficiency back, then gave heavy armor proficiency at some point. When you had to choose that in place of the mystic arcanum invocations.
At it stands right now there's too much return for too little investment. Doesn't seem like there's enough opportunity cost driven decisions to keep warlock balanced.
Bruh, I'm so hyped for GOO. Bladelock definitely needs work and I really hope they give a boost to Celestial patron because I like the idea of it, but Great Old One looks so incredibly fun. That said, the whole way though I was definitely thinking warlock is still an overly good multiclass 1-2 level dip, which always felt...silly, given the theme of warlock. If the DM doesn't put the PC on the hook from their patron (or you're just optimizing a one-shot character), it's just kind of a no-consequence no-brainer for so many builds, which I thought was something they wanted to move away from.
Treant, the Book of Shadows is ALWAYS reconjured at the end of a Short or Long Rest. This means that whether you use the slot or not, once your Rest is completed, you will still only ever get that one 1st level slot once per Long Rest.
(Android won't let me edit. 😂)
But you're right in that the wording could be better. Because the way it's setup, it looks like the slot comes with the Book when it actually doesn't.
It's the Invocation that grants the Spell Slot.
RIP Voice of the Chainmaster a pretty big debuff to the scout and communication potential of your familiar
NGL, I was intrigued by the Playtest 5 Warlock. Halfcasting with Mystic Arcanum Invocations for higher level spells seemed like a nice balance between having more spells available and ensuring Warlock felt different from other full casters. I hope it comes back as maybe a new class one day. The idea of a spellsword is one dnd doesn’t have a direct translation for ATM.
My problens with warlock:
- it should be an Int caster ( or at least has this option)
-more spellslots or mystic arcanun for every spell circle
I say give a choice between int or cha. Charisma has been used as the stat for casters who are naturally inclinced or gifted with magic where int is more about people who studied it. I think there is room for studied warlocks as well.
Say whatever you what about balance. I want a Skeleton Familiar, he's going to wear a suit, tophat and monacle, and his name is going to be Beuregard Cobblepot.
Pact of the tome needs to clarify if its lvl 1 spell slot it gives is a pact slot or an actual spell slot given the slot comes from a pact. Also its really good to take using the eldrich adept feat for find familir, shillelagh and booming or green flame blade.
39:00 JC did say that more spells are getting upcasting added when talking about the new twinned spell, so I think there's at least a strong possibility that more if not all warlock and patron spells level 4 and below will upcast.
Maybe you could stack radiant soul with agonizing blast and create bonfire and then your party can repeatedly push people through it with weapon masteries or repelling blast.
This is the most exciting version of the warlock for me! It definitely needs some tweaking from a balance perspective but for me it’s pretty close to what I’d want. My only two things I think I’d want changed is a return of “Book of ancient secrets” as an invocation. I loved being a master of all rituals and I’d love something to enable that again. I also am not the fondest of patrons being selected at 3rd level. It feels narratively odd that you have powers from your patron by the fact you are a warlock but that patron mechanically can change until level 3. I think they should be close to that of the cleric in current 5e and have to be selected from day 0 and have a tiny feature to start with. In reality both of these don’t actually matter but are my preferences
One thing you missed, is that agonizing blast adds your Cha mod to the chosen cantrip's damage roll*s*, not the chosen cantrip's damage. This means that, in theory, if you chose a cantrip other than Eldritch Blast, like, say, Chill Touch, you'd not be adding your Cha mod once while eldritch blast gets it to every blast; just like eldritch blast gets it to every blast, Chill Touch would get it to every damage roll, so at 5th level, when Eldritch Blast has 2 blasts that each deal 1d10+Cha mod damage, Chill Touch would be dealing 2d8 + double your Cha mod damage, since you'd be adding your Cha mod to all damage roll*S* aka BOTH d8 rolls, meaning, yes, it would get added more than once, just like Eldritch Blast. Likewise, with the changes to Hex making the damage scale based on slot rather than number of hits, Eldritch Blast isn't coming ahead on hex damage either.
There is still some advantages to taking it with Eldritch Blast, mind you...the main ones being that EB can multi-target with its blasts while almost all your other options can only single-target, and the fact it deals deals force damage, which is pretty much never bothered by resistances or immunities. However, the damage on other cantrips is now comparable enough to Eldritch Blast's damage that you actually might seriously consider slapping Agonizing on a Cantrip that has a good rider effect instead of on Eldritch Blast, like say Mind Sliver. The damage is slightly less, but still way more than any other caster, and you get the super-sweet rider on top of that, sacrificing the raw damage of EB for the added power of that rider. As stated, Agonizing Mind Sliver looks SUPER good under this, and bladelocks will LOVE agonizing Greed Flame Blade, Booming Blade etc....
I think Hurl through Hell should be a success per long rest instead of an attempt. That way you don't just waste your high level feature.
25:37 We light the brazier and *POOF* everything is consumed in a large puff of smoke, like in Aladdin.
I can't speak for others but, my excitement for Alter Self at Level 5 is purely for roleplay/aesthetic purposes. It's just a cool transformation gimmick.
I don't think making Eldritch Blast scale with Warlock level would stop the 1-2 level Warlock dip... It would just stop the dipping to take Eldritch Blast.
There's simply no reason to stay in Warlock long term (a byproduct of only having 2 Pact Slots). The invocations changes helps a little bit, but it's also more of a reason to take a Warlock dip and leave.
Stronger Invocations = Better Dips
Restricting Invocations to Warlocks = No one plays Warlock
Stronger Invocations but Restricted to Warlocks = Maybe could work, but the Invocations would have to be insanely good/strong. If they aren't, No one plays Warlock.
I really wish they would abandon Pact Slots. IMO Pact Slots/Pact Magic should be an entirely separate system.
One of the things I tried, was making Warlocks a sort of "Prestige" class. Anyone can make a Pact with themselves, giving something up to get power/improve their own abilities. For instance, A Wizard forging a Pact to get a "Greater Familiar" that they could ride on and cast spells through, but if it dies, the Wizard dies.
But something like that is not happening this edition.
I think it's okay that Bladelocks do a lot of damage in melee as long as they are prevented from picking up better armor via multiclassing. On paper it actually sounds reasonable that Bladelocks are the highest DPR melee attacker, but it becomes unreasonable when you consider that a simple Paladin dip can fix just about every problem they have. Dipping into Paladin grants them the utility they normally lack with spells like Bless and patches their AC. If Pact of the Blade had a stipulation where it stops working with armor equipped I think that would solve this issue and Bladelocks will truly be the glass cannon melee powerhouse.
Just take moderately armored for the first level feat instead. Way more efficient. Although the Paladin smites would be nice haha
I almost never see high level warlocks in my games. I really hope they keep the scaling of eldritch blast based on warlock levels. That combined with some very good invocation (eg the jump one) could make a couple of level dips stay good. With getting the patron soells that approach has also become even stronger
I still do not understand why people say that warlocks are so short rest hungry. Half the roster gets very big resources back on a short rest and everybody gets HP back.
I a good change for radiant soul is instead is fire resistance instead or resistance to both. And change it to “when you deal radiant or fire damage” instead of when you cast a spell that deals radiant or fire damage.
Or give them celestial spell you cast a warlock spell that deals damage. You can change that damage to radiant or fire. Also still change resistance to fire or give them both
I feel like all Pact Magic really needsto feel decent is another spell slot al lvl 6-7. Maybe if you don't want them to have 5 in total, reshuffle them - third around lvl 7 and fourth around lvl 15.
I personally don’t care for the extra spell they can regain. I would like to see like 1 free casting of each level of spells for your subclass spells. Limiting but gives the spells people desire.
That capstone is a phone-in. This is a WARLOCK. Make it fun, for deity's sake. Hoping you let me sit still for a minute until I get my spells back is not evocative or thematic or impressive or unnerving. All things a warlock should be. And, as always, your thorough deep-dives continue to be appreciated.
Investment of the Chain Master doesn't affect the Sprite's chance to render targets Unconscious. Our DC does help the target become more likely to get Poisoned for 1 minute, but knocking them out is unrelated to the DC. The target only falls Unconscious if their saving throw result is 5 or lower. Where our DC would help is if we use the Pseudodragon to knock enemies out. That triggers if the target fails the saving throw by 5 or more. While this is a lot more likely to achieve with our DC, the Pseudodragon has to get into melee, and has less defenses compared to the Imp who can deliver some respectable damage. Casting Darkness can work for either of them since one has Devil's Sight (120ft) and the other Blindsight (10ft). Making hit and run possible against some creatures Flyby-style.
I think the slaad tadpole was included to have something thematic for GOO locks. I suppose they felt a gazer would be problematic.
The nerf to Hurl Through Hell is exactly what I wanted. A nerf to high level casters and a nerf to save-less features.
I am a bit sad about the playtest 5 packet warlock lost, but I am very happy with the improvements to the invocations. I’d be ok with this warlock in the game.
Awesome review, perfect for me who don't get alot of Table-top playtime these days...
One interesting modification regarding Warlocks changing pact magic when they level (or no longer being able to do this) might be to allow it, but only allow it for Pact of the Tome ... I think that pact needs a little more something, and this could be a good way to weave this back into the Warlock.
I think an Invocation that turns your first level spell into an additional slot of Pact level would make it absolutely wild.
Maybe a more reasonable alternative would be a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd slot through a 7th level invocation.
@@AwesomeWookiee It could be a "family" of Invocations (all of them requiring Pact of The Tome & certain levels of Warlock; otherwise independent), each invocation giving an extra "upcast_only" spellslot [Non-Pact, Non-rechargeable by Sorcery Points, one-time-only per Long Rest] that only accepts spells of first level |
. (PotT; War7): +1 Second Level "dummy" Spellslot. |
. (PotT;War11): +1 Third Level "dummy" Spellslot. |
. (PotT;War15): +1 Fourth Level "dummy" Spellslot |
. (PotT;War17;one_dummy_Ss): The selected "dummy" spellslot is upgraded & can be used to "upcast" either a spell of first level TWICE (at its level, not consumed the first time), or cast a spell of its level ONCE. {Repeateable}
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Note: No "dummy" spellslots of fifth level (by design).
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Note2: Each upgraded ex-dummy Spellslot CAN upcast a first level spell & THEN cast a higher level Spell equal to its spelslot size [by design: using the flashy high level spells at the start is more costly].
I think that 6th lvl of celestial feature pairs really well with the dragonic sorcorer if you plan to specialize in fire magic. Thats a lvl 12 character though so it comes on late but 3d10 plus 15 fire damage plus elemental isnt bad. You can also quicken it and your leveled flame spells are getting plus 10. The main problem is immunity but transmute spell still exist.
I mean...I love Warlock. Thematically, it's my favorite class. The biggest weakness is that you don't get enough spell slots. The multiclassing thing is an issue MOSTLY because that in conjunction with Eldritch Blast being so powerful means almost nobody ever wants to take the class further than a few levels...
Unfortunately, I've never BEEN ABLE to because the one DM I had for years kept restarting campaigns or making new ones. So, kinda got screwed on that.